Hellfire Days and Wild Knights
by Atlan
Summary: Ranma Xmen Evolution crossover. Ranma, Ukyo and Shampoo settle down, and Ranma meets his new students. In Japan, Nodoka finally gets word from her son.
1. Prologue: Dark Times

I hate the day.

It wasn't always this way. I used to love the daytime, though it seems like a century ago. Before Pop took me on our journey, I would play in the park with my friends. Or out on our journey, playing with Ucchan, or sparing with Ryoga, or learning some new technique with Pops. All out in the sun, when the world seemed a happier place, full of hope.

But there ain't any hope no more.

You can feel it in the air. A sense of- something. Like the calm before a storm. You walk down a street, and you can feel eyes on your back. Mothers, hanging out their washing, looking at the pedestrians just a little too long, their eyes squinting slightly. Most can't put their finger on it, but to those of us in the know, its there.

Suspicion. Fear. Hate.

Other countries don't have it so bad, I hear. In Australia, and New Zealand, in particular, it's all pretty happy. The bulk of Europe has it, but not so badly as most places. America has it, but like everything American, its overplayed, beyond what they actually feel. Gangs and shootings. Sad, when the safest place to go is the most violent. But then again, its not like I have a choice. Japan is terrible, probably the worst in the world, ashamed as I am to admit it. It's a pretty stiff country any way. Not everyone here realizes it, but I do. Having been to so many other countries, Japan seems so closed, so bossy. Everyone has to fit in, has to be just like everyone else. Even in my old home, Nerima.

I hear they clamped down on it, after we left. No more insane Kendoists, no drug obsessed gymnasts, no pineapple toting hairdresser wannabes. Now, it's just like everywhere else in Tokyo. Just the same as everywhere else in Japan. All drones, looking for the nail that sticks out, with a hammer ready. That's why I left- I'm a pretty big nail, and they were sure to fetch a huge hammer, one which wouldn't care how much damage it made trying to keep me down.

But you can't escape the fear, wherever you go. Or the guilt. You know that at any moment, someone will shout out a word, just one word, and it'll all be over. One word, and a hundred people will be trying to tear you apart.

That's why I'm leaving. The boat leaves in an hour, and it'll just be the three of us, normal illegal immigrants to America, three of millions. And hopefully, we wont have to fear as much. Or maybe I'll find this "White Queen" Nabiki mentioned. She said, before I left, that she was looking for some skilled fighters, and that I'd fit right in. Perhaps I'll find her. Maybe we'll just wander around. But at least we'll be in "America, home of the Free". Maybe then we'll be free. No more looking behind my back for those dam sensors. No more having to run as people accuse us, condemn us for what we couldn't help. Before they label us.

Before they scream out what we are, for the world to know and despise.

Before they scream "Mutant".


	2. Chapter 1: Hail to the Queen

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Sopchoppy, Josh Temple, and Dragonlord for inspiration.

Disclaimer: I own neither Xmen nor Ranma. These characters do not belong to me in any way, shape or form. But I sure wish I did.

I bet most guys my age have their own fantasies, their own dreams. From everything Hirosuke and Daisuke say, they tend to involve naked women and whipped cream. While those two are the biggest perverts I know (except for Happp- I mean, the Leach, say the name and you summon the evil), I get the feeling that the woman part, though not the whipped cream, features heavily in most guy's dreams. But not me. I dream of battles, of fights so exciting, so glory filled, that the movie "The Matrix: Revolutions" looks lame in comparison. Well, even more lame than normal, at least. This morning, I was dreaming about me, in girl form, fighting Pantyhose Taro. It was a good one, and my victory was perfect. I ended up tying his tentacles and his tail together, and hog-tied him, monster form, with his own pantyhose. Then everyone I know was watching me, heaping me with the praise I deserve.

"Yay! You beat the mean monster! I'll never call you a delinquent again!"

"Dam you Ranma! Now I'll never be able to beat you!"

"Oh how wrong I was to think you wanted to separate me from my Shampoo! I beg of you to forgive me, Saotome"

"Well, my boy, now you are the grandmaster of Anything-Goes Martial Arts. I will retire, and give up panties for life"

"Good job son in law, now let me share with you the secrets of the Amazon's secret techniques"

"You are not a foul sorcerer after all, Saotome. I would be proud to call you my better in every way"

"I'll cancel your debt Saotome"

"Oh my!"

"You truly are a Man among men, my son"

"Oh Ranma, you're so much better than me in every way! I'm so sorry I got you cursed at Jusenko"

"Oh Ranma! You are the best martial artist in the world! I promise to never cook you anything or hit you ever again!"

"Arien! Wake up!"

"We're almost there, sugar"

Wait, those last two weren't right. Weren't they supposed to be realizing that I'm the best in the world, and they'd cook for me forever?

Oh wait. It was a dream. Crap.

I came out of my dream, but kept my eyes closed. It's not like I get a lot of time in bed, and I wanted to savor every moment of it. That, by the way, is why Akane had to wake me up with water every day for a year and a half. I love being in bed too much to get up for anything short of being thrown out, or the Futon being too wet to sleep in.

Futon. I wasn't in a futon. I was in a bed? That's not good. I don't have a bed, I have a futon. But all my fiancé's have beds, hell, they've tried to get me into theirs often enough. Lets see: Smell test. Smells: Fish? Oil? What the hell? Okonomiyaki, so Ucchan must be around. Wait, C…C…C...C…Those evil creatures? Shampoo? I'm dead. I'm so, utterly, completely dead. Why am I in girl form?

I quickly huddled up, curling into a ball, as tight as I could, and braced for heavy impact.

"Dam it sugar, it ain't funny anymore!"

"Aiya! Sapt- Ukyo right! Is too, too funny at first, but is TWO MONTHS of it, is no funny any more!"

Huh? Two months? What the hell… oh. Right. The wedding. The disaster. The Betrayal.

Leaving Nerima.

I relaxed and got up, opening my eyes. I could see the bed we were sleeping on, occupying most of our small cabin. It was just a single bed, yet it consumed almost half of our floor. There was a small sink in the corner, as the only other piece of furniture in the room. Washing her face in it was my 'Cute Fiancé', Ukyo Kuonji. She was in her chef's outfit, which, though technically made up of guys clothes, left no doubt that she was a girl. Her black pants were tighter than pants should really be, showing off her legs whilst covering them. Her shirt, a light blue, was tied at the waist, showing off her narrow waistline, before it hung down, concealing just how tight those pants were on her ass. Across her chest she had a bandolier full of throwing spatulas, while on her back her ever-present combat spatula was missing, giving an unobstructed view of the black ribbon in her hair. Recently, I noticed, she had been going with black in her fashion choices more and more.

She turned around to face me, and grinned when she caught me staring at her butt.

"Like what you see, Sugar?" she asked innocently, turning around and bending forward, giving me ample proof that yes, those breasts were real. The smirk on her face ruined any hope she might have had that I was fooled by her tone of voice.

I blushed, and turned my head slightly. "And Kuno called ME a foul temptress! Just look at you!" My attempt at payback was met by a sultry grin.

"Hey! You no ignore Shampoo, are you?" My other roommate chimed in. I turned around to look at her.

And almost had to pinch my nose to prevent a nosebleed.

I had always thought that Shampoo had dressed a little… oddly in Nerima, but now she was even worse. Her tight Amazon dress was even tighter, shorter, and showed more cleavage than ever. She had a pair of high-heeled shoes, befitting a lady going out to a fancy dinner, elegant yet plain. Her blue hair no longer sported any hairclips, flowing free and shimmering in the light. All of her Amazon pantsuits were left behind when we left, so all she had left was several of the same style of dress, in different colors.

My examination (not ogling, I never ogle, I'm not a pervert- I swear) was brought to a hold by Ucchan knocking on the back of my head. I winced, and turned back around to face her. For some reason, she kept looking at my chest.

"Uh, Ranchan honey, you might want to put a shirt on" she said, thrusting one in my face. It was one of the ones we'd picked up on the run, 'borrowed' using the Master's (cough, splutter, choke on calling him master) panty theft techniques. The shirt explained why she was looking down so much, as thanks her and Shampoo my …interest… was quite visible. As for the shirt, it was a red one, and without a doubt it was designed for a woman smaller than me. I grabbed it out of her hands, pulling it over my head.

"Uh, so tight" I groaned, as I tried to force the tiny thing over my …attributes. After a moment more of struggle, I managed it, though it ripped in the process, right where the pressure was worst, leaving almost all of my cleavage available for public display. "Dam thing's way too tight. Who the hell suggested we steal women's clothes? Why couldn't I stick with my normal ones?", my complaining knowing no bounds.

A frantic Ucchan thrust a pair of panties and a tiny skirt at me. "Dam it, the ship's docking into port right now guys, so we gotta be ready to get going" I sighed, and put on the presented offences to my manhood. Once I would have kicked up a big fight about wearing them, but given my life, and my situation, it was the only viable option. After all, none would expect Ranma 'I'm a boy!' Saotome to wear girls' clothes, even with a locked curse. Of course, they'd be wrong, I always used to dress up to fool Ryoga or avoid seppuku, but the reputation still stuck anyway. Still, it was depressing. Really depressing. I think Shampoo and Ucchan knew that, and kept staying close to me to keep my confidence up- never know when a Moko Takabishia might be needed. In fact, they were acting like nothing had changed, like we were still in Nerima and I could still go back to being a boy with a bath. Well, not quite. They were a lot less jealous now, which was no bad thing.

As I finished getting dressed, finding a pair of shoes like those of my Chinese wife, only red, Shampoo and Ucchan were packing the last of our possessions. The list wasn't great, just a couple of changes of clothes for each of us, a sack of throwing spatulas, a purse and an address book. Shampoo wasn't without her Bonbori, the pair of them accompanying her scimitar, shield and Ucchans combat spatula, hidden on the top of the boat, mixed amongst some machinery where they wouldn't be noticed. Still, our possessions were meager, and if it hadn't been for the money from Nabiki selling Ucchans', the restaurant previously owned by my childhood friend, and the money from the Old Ghoul selling the Nekohaten, the three of us would be in dire straits. As it stood, we had quite a lot of money, but given our appetites, that wouldn't last long.

A thought occurred to me. "Hey guys, what do you think about this: we open a restaurant here?"

"What sort, sugar, Chinese or Okonomiyaki?" asked my Okonomiyaki obsessed companion. For her it was the most important question after all.

"Both? After all, you guys cook better than that Picolet guy's chefs"

Ukyo seemed to think about it for a moment, and then shook her head. "Nuh uh, have you any idea how much paperwork it takes to set up a restaurant?"

I thought about it for a moment. "None?" I asked hopefully. After all, what could there be to it? You cook the food, people eat the food. We had enough money to buy the store, so we wouldn't need to pay rent, so all we'd need would be to buy ingredients each week. Right?

"Wrong, is too, too wrong" chimed in Shampoo, as she put her earrings in. Facing me, she kept talking. "Is needing to pay tax, insurance, more tax, health inspector, more tax, and is needing to show is allowed in country" Right. Can't forget she worked at a restaurant for longer than Ucchan.

Something occurred to me. "Allowed in the country?"

Ukyo seemed to understand what I was getting at. "No, we ain't. After all, don't forget that we're wanted criminals, and with Kuno as our enemy, if we tried to get a 'Green Card' we'd have goons all over us before you can say 'shit, he got a clue after all'"

A knocking sound came from outside our door. "May I come in?" asked a voice, in muffled English. Without waiting for an answer the speaker opened the door and stuck his head in. He was an American, not even old enough to shave, and had a goofy grin on his face. His name was Locke, and had taken it upon himself to look after us for the trip. Convenient, but irritating. "Uh, excuse me, is time to leave fish now" he practiced his Japanese on us. Surprisingly good for someone who had no language other than English a month and a half ago, but it would seem that wanting to talk to the three of us was a good incentive to learn. Although he never remembered why he had a crush on Shampoo, we did, and teased her about it every night. After all, no one would expect Shampoo to grope anyone. Well, except me, but then I'm the best, even when it comes to getting girls. Sometimes it's hard to be so awesome in everything I do.

Shampoo, the most skilled of us in English, replied to the crewman, "I is thinking you mean Ship, not fish", correcting his Japanese. "We is ready to leave, if you is ready to take us, Locke" She bent forward slightly while saying this, and you could see his eyes track down to take advantage of her new position.

It had been surprising that Shampoo was so good at English, but she had reminded us how little Japanese she had spoken while hunting me, as compared to when she returned to Japan, intent on marrying me. And since the incident, that skill with languages had only increased.

Locke picked up our bag, and led us through the ship. Normally, they didn't take passengers, but between my …talents... and the beauty of the three of us, they made an exception. This meant, aside from our getting a tiny room, that no one hunting us would think to look for us on this ship. It also meant, right now, that we were almost alone, except for the occasional crew member doing whatever it is that people do on boats. I was grateful for that, as my few experiences with trains has taught me never to wear a short skirt in crowds. So, the four of us walked unmolested, right through the ship. I took a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that my lack of height was an advantage here. Ucchan and Shampoo cracked their heads on doorframes all the time, whilst I couldn't even if I wanted to. Yay.

Up on deck, the captain, who actually spoke Japanese, bid us farewell, whilst hinting that he wanted to get us into his bed. Well, he tried to hint, but since Japanese was not his first language, the hinting went like this. "If you ever need come back, I keep bed warm for you every night". Or, he might just have been a pervert. Who cared?

The boat, called the 'Serene Beauty', was parked up against a dock. Most of the crew were hauling fish around, and a crowd of small trucks waited impatiently for their cargo. It was heartwarming, and a little embarrassing, to see the crew hook up with their old girlfriends, as partners of crew weren't allowed on the ship. One by one, the women waiting were meeting up with the crew, as the finished their work or just skipped it, and the reunited couples drifted off. After all the unloading was done, we wandered off the ship, weapons recovered and stuck in a huge pack, carried by Ukyo, since Shampoo had the other bag.

As we disembarked, I noticed a woman who hadn't met up with anyone, and was just waiting there, holding a sign. I nudged Shampoo.

"Hey Shamps, what does that sign say?" I asked, more out of boredom that out of any real interest.

She looked in the direction I was pointing, and stopped walking, tensing up. Ucchan and I stopped walking too, and faced her. "What's happening, Sugar?"

"Is snow haired wommans sign. Is saying something important" She responded, looking nervous and pleased at the same time. Ucchan and I shared a look, and I sighed.

"And what does the sign say?" I played along with her game. I think she started it up to compensate for the lack of affection she got in Nerima, cause she's been doing it ever since we left.

"Shampoo no knows. But is thinking is going to know with. …encouragement" A seductive grin flashed across her face, and was replaced with a completely false expression of innocence.

I sighed, then stood up on tiptoes and kissed her. Not just a peck on the cheek, though I tried, but full on the lips, with tongue. She held the kiss for a minute, then stopped when I started running out of oxygen. That girl had the power of a vacuum cleaner, I swear. Once, I would have been too paralyzed with fear to do that, but there was no tomboy anywhere near here, and Ucchan wouldn't smash me on the head for it, though she would want the same attention when we found a motel.

Shamps answered my question. "Is saying, Shampoo Joketsuzoku, Ranma Joketsuzoku and Ukyo Joketsuzoku" Her awnser made me a litle nervous. Okay, a lot nervous. If someone could track us down, then chances were that they worked for Kuno. Idiot that he was, he had money, more than enough to compensate for his lack of IQ.

I glanced at my compainoins. "So, what do we do now?"

Shampoo looked thoughtful, an expression I hadn't usually seen on her face until the Betrayal, but one that suited her. "Is probably ok to talk to"

Ukyo and I boggled at that declaration. "What the hell would give you that idea, Sugar? We're wanted criminals, and a strange woman has a sign with our names on. Doesn't that seem a little suspicious to you!"

Shampoo shook her head. "Is last name is giving it away. Is calling us all Joketsuzoku. Is name of Shampoo tirbe, but everyone in Nerima is thinking we is called Amazons. Is only Mouse, Grandmother and probably Nabiki knowing that name. And they is all on our side."

That didn't add up to me. "Mouse is on our side? I thought I wanted me dead for stealing you! When did that change?"

"Is still wanting you dead, but is wanting Shampoo happy more. Is only atacking you because you was not making me happy, but now we is togther, Duck-boy is not trying to kill you."

"Heh, the fact that you would get killed as well is probably a big deal to him too. Well, if youre sure…."

"Uh, Guys?" Ucchan said urgently.

"Huh? What?"

"That womans's coming our way"

And so she was. Whilst we were arguing, the white haired woman had put down her sign, and was aproaching us. I nodded to Ucchan, who took out a throwing spatula and held it at the ready. I slipped into the trademark Anything goes stance- hands in my pockets, looking toatally casual. Shampoo moved infront of us, as she was the best to talk to our visitor.

Now that she was closer, I could see her better. She was a foriener, of course. Shampoo had been accurate when she described her as Snow Haired Womman- it was whiter than any hair I had ever seen. The white theme was continued all over her- her skin was pure white, not sickly, but like a marble statue that pops stole once. She had white gloves, that went up to between her shulder and her elbow, and a white choker on her neck. Her pants were build into her shoes, all white, tight and sexy. She had a white top on, a strapless top which had a lot of straps over her stomach, and covered about two thirds of her ample bossums. Not as big as mine were now, but as big as they used to be. On her tall frame, they fit a lot better though. The overall affect was one of beauty, grace, and confidence.

As she strode towards us, I muttered to my compaionions "If anything happens, split up, stay out of sight for the day, and at midnight, meet at the top of the tallest building in town" They nodded minulty, we had all learned our lesson about not being properly prepaired in dangerous situations.

The stranger stopped a couple of meters in fount of us. She bowed, Japanese style, and spoke in Japanese too. "Ranma, Shampoo, Ukyo, Nice to meet you. Nabiki told me so many stories about you all. Especially you, Ranma. I never would have guessed you were a guy, looking like that!" She seemed amused at the last part, and I responded, using the dreaded, dangerous and fairly stupid Saotome Style Verbal Technique: blurt out the first thing that comes to mind!

"Who the hell are you, lady? You better not be a Fiancé, cause I aint gonna marry you! I had enough trouble getting out of it last time, and I'm already taken anyway!"

She went bug-eyed at me for a second (Saotome Style Verbal Technique success! The opponent is confused and off balance, and thinks you're a complete idiot), before giggling. From a woman like her, I didn't think it would be a normal occurrence, so I waited for it to subside. When she continued, her voice was full of amusement.

"I assure you, I have no desire to marry you- for one thing, I'm not a lesbian"

"Hey! I'm a guy!" oops. Wrong thing to say. A fact proved to me by my fiancées smacking me in the head.

"Ranchan! Are you TRYING to get a new girl! Give that ego of yours a rest, jackass"

"Arien is no looking so manly right now" Shamps started rubbing my right breast to prove it.

The woman in white coughed politely, and we all turned back to face her. She gave another try at getting wherever she was trying to get. "As I was saying, I'm no Fiancée. I am, in fact, here to offer you all a place to stay. My name is Emma Frost, though some call me the White Queen, and I would like to offer you membership to a rather exclusive group, the Hellfire Club"

Yes, I replaced it. Just wanted to fix a couple of spelling errors, and hit at the next chapter. Thanks for the reviews! I feel so loved.

Note: Shamps isn't a spell error. It's a nickname for Shampoo, though not as often used as Ucchan is for Ukyo


	3. Chapter 2: Knight to H1

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Sopchoppy, Temple, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to **Questara** and **J. St.C. Patrick**, for proofreading it for me.

Disclaimer: I own neither Xmen nor Ranma. These characters do not belong to me in any way, shape or form. But I sure wish I did.

* * *

Now, I never was the most trusting of people. Naive, yes. Irritating, yes. Ignorant, yes. But trusting? Not really. Pops taught me never to be too trusting. After all, if you had a father who would throw you into a pit of starving cats, would YOU be a trusting person? I don't think so. And with the way my time in Nerima ended, I was not left in a terribly trusting frame of mind. So when this White Queen lady offered us a place to stay, I only had one thing to say.

"Huh?"

Ah yes, the Saotome Verbal Technique showing its face again. Make yourself look stupid, and your opponent underestimates you. And they tell you more than they intended.

The White Queen looked irritated briefly, then explained. "Well, I am a mutant, just like you. Miss Nabiki Tendo sold me the information that your latent X-genes had activated, and advised me that you might be smuggling yourselves into the country. I took it upon myself to wait for you."

Shampoo went on the offensive. "But what you want with us? We is no saying we is mutants, but if we were- why you care?" We all underestimated that girl. Ever since she showed up in Nerima, hunting me down, everyone was convinced she was a ditz. No one, not even me, noticed that she went from no Japanese to pretty good Japanese in under a month. Or how she knew not to kill Akane when she gave her the kiss of death, since I would have gotten revenge for it. Shampoo is, in all honesty, one of the smartest people I ever met. Even here, I would probably have blurted out how surprised I was that she knew we were mutants, and if it was a trap, we would have been in big trouble.

"Well, I'm gathering a group of mutants, the most powerful I can find. And the three of you, with your powers and your Martial Arts abilities, may be some of the most powerful mutants out there." The white woman was looking around now, and speaking slightly quieter. I wondered if there was someone after her.

Ucchan spoke up. "Well, we better take this somewhere else. I don't wanna be on the run again." Right, I kept forgetting. If we said we were mutants, we'd probably have people coming over to beat us up, or worse. And I was not interested in having to beat them all up, and then have them say that we started it. That already happened once, as we were getting out of Tokyo.

Our possible benefactor nodded. "My car is around the corner. We can talk in privacy there." and strode off as if she expected us to follow without a question. Which we did. Partly because of trust, partly because we had no where else to go, but mostly because we were pretty confident that we could get out of any bad situation without much difficulty.

Her car was a long one, white, with a driver waiting. He was wearing a suit and sunglasses, and was standing next to the car, looking tough. As the White Queen approached, he opened a door for her. She ignored him, and stepped into the oversized car, gesturing at us to come in too. We stepped in, with the driver closing the door behind us, and then getting in him self. Our hostess called out to him in English. Shampoo translated for me. "She is saying, Jeeves, lets go to the hotel." I nodded, wondering if the hotel had something to eat. I was starved, though that isn't exactly unusual for me, but I hadn't had anything to eat today, and it was almost eleven in the morning!

Ms. Frost switched back to Japanese. "I take it you have noticed how badly mutants are treated, both here and in Japan?" She asked rhetorically. After all, if they were treated well, we wouldn't have spent all that time in a boat surrounded by horny foreigners. "Well, there are a few groups out there trying to do something about it. The most active are the X-men, Acolytes, Morlocks and the Brotherhood, all largely operating around the same city. The Acolytes are seldom found anywhere, but return to a certain city fairly regularly. The X-men and the Brotherhood live in the city, while the Morlocks dwell in its sewers. Now, while all of these groups are comprised entirely of mutants, they all approach the problem of mutant/human relations in different ways"

"How so?" asked Ucchan.

"Well, the Morlocks, they are all deformed in one way or another. There is one member with a hand the size of her head, and another person with armor plating and spikes. Anyone can tell that they are mutants, and no one will let them into shops. Mobs have formed behind them on the rare occasions they show themselves on the street. As a result, they live in the sewers, stealing from rubbish bins for food"

"Aiyah! That terrible! I is feeling too, too sorry for them"

"Yes, I feel the same way. The way they approach mutant/human relations is simple: they hide and hope no one tries to hunt them down. They are the weakest group of the lot.

The next group would be The Brotherhood. They are largely delinquents, doing what ever they please, since no one can stop them. They are feared among the people, though they seem to have done enough good for the community that no mobs form to hunt them.

The Brotherhood were once subservient to a woman named Mystique, and her boss Magneto. But due to the fact that Mystique disappeared so often, for so long, they now follow Magneto's son, Quicksilver. He's not much of a leader, but since his father said he's in charge, he is. They still do Magneto's bidding, but he doesn't give them many orders, partly because he doesn't want to overuse his control over them and lose their loyalty, but mostly because he knows how unreliable they are.

As for Magneto, he commands the Acolytes, some of the most dangerous of the lot. They are all adults, while the other groups are mainly people your age. Where the Brotherhood just want to do whatever they feel like, the Acolytes want to rule all of humanity, have all humans as slaves and mutants as the elite. They are in no way hesitant to endanger human lives, or end them."

"Sounds like Ryoga" I murmured.

"Indeed, they have similar philosophies, though Magneto is infinitely smarter.

The final group is the X-men, who believe in mutants and humans living together peacefully. They are the most restrained of the lot, and are famous for rushing off to combat mutants who are terrorizing others.

As a side note, whilst a group of X-men will fight, there are other people who live with the X-men, mutants also but younger. They have uniforms, and fight alongside the X-men occasionally. Technically, they are X-men too, but in practice they are called the New Mutants."

I mused on this. "So, X-men are the good guys, Acolytes are the bad guys, Brotherhood are a nuisance, and the Morlocks stay out of sight and don't do anything, right?"

Ms. Frost laughed. "Well, that's oversimplifying it a bit. Both the X-men and the Acolytes are doing what they think is right, so each of them would claim to be the 'good guys' but your definition is essentially correct"

Shampoo asked, "So where Hellfire Club in this?" Dam, I always forgot how smart she was. I'd forgotten about the group we were supposed to join. Must be starvation kicking in.

"The Hellfire Club is from England, originally, and are yet to come to join in the conflict. However, my philosophy is a shade of gray, compared to the black and white of the other groups. I feel that mutants will eventually comprise all the world population, given enough time, but that until then, someone has to buy mutants the freedom and prosperity they need. It will take centuries, but one day the last of humanity will have bred and mutated so that every one has an X-gene"

"X-gene?"

"The gene that separates humanity from mutants. So I try to keep anti-mutant laws from being passed, and safeguard mutants when I can. That's why I would like to invite you to join me, to help mutants everywhere. What do you say?"

"Uhhhhhh……" I said, whipping out the Saotome Verbal Technique. Before I could take it from setting 1(looking stupid) to setting 2 (insulting) Ucchan saved me.

"Isn't it a bit soon to decide, Ms. Frost?"

"Oh, call me Emma, please. Yes, you're totally right. I apologize, I had some stressful events take place recently, so I'm in a little bit of a rush to reform the Hellfire Club"

Before I could ask what happened to the old one, if it needed reforming, Shampoo spoke up. "Is we getting somewhere to eat, soon? Is not having eaten today"

My stomach contributed to that argument with a deep growl. I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly, while Shampoo and Ukyo just shook their heads. Emma grinned. "Well, the hotel has room service, and I took the liberty of getting us rooms each. Would you like to stay there for a couple of days? Obligation free, think of it as a gift. What do you say?"

"YES!" I yelled, my stomach telling me that I better say yes or else. Shampoo and Ukyo nodded their affirmative, though I got the feeling that I was gonna be in for it later.

Up in the Hotel (a really rich place, the sorta place Pop woulda loved to rob) Emma showed us our rooms. She had her own room, a private one I think she had reserved for her, while we had something that could've passed for a house. It had a lounge, a spa pool, three bedrooms, and a TV that must have cost more than Nabiki extorted from me the whole time I stayed with the Tendos. The driver of the car (Ukyo told me it was a Limo) must have related how hungry I was to the hotel staff, because not five minutes after we arrived in the room, room service appeared with a cart full of food. They politely took the food off, and put it on the table, acting like waiters. And that was me entertained for about a minute and a half, gorging myself. The waiters just gawked at me, since I started before they left, and were flabbergasted when I finished the whole lot myself.

"Another three of the same, thanks" I called out. "Oh yeah, do you want anything?" I asked Ucchan and Shamps. They sighed, and nodded. I yelled out "make that four". The waiters were in a state of shock, one of them walking into the doorframe on the way out. I had to laugh at that one.

Sometime later, after even I had eaten enough to be full, the three of us were lounging on the couch, watching some TV show, something called "The Nanny". I was in the middle, being sandwiched by two girls snuggling up to me. It was a nice change to be able to enjoy it, but there were important things to talk about.

"What do you guys think of that offer?" I asked, knowing that they would know what I meant. Beside me, I felt Shampoo stir.

"Is sounding good to me, but Snow Lady is no telling us all"

"Yeah, sugar, I'm a little suspicious. I think she's on the level, but there are a couple of things that bug me. What happened to her old group, that means she needs to 'reform' instead of recrute. Did they get killed, or leave her, or what? And if she's a real mutant, what's her power?"

This sounded reasonable. "You could just ask. Hey! Shamps, maybe she knows someone who could help you learn your power!"

My Amazon wife snorted. "Is knowing how to use power anyway. No need help!" Well, I'm not the only one who has the confidence to pull off a Moko Takabishia, after all. Just the only one with the skill.

Ucchan had to laugh at that one. "Sure, honey, you really meant to fall into that guys bedroom that night, when he was naked, but not get out again" Shampoo blushed.

"And if you really meant to read that guys mind when he saw you, you must be a bigger pervert than I thought. Though being able to make him think you were never there was pretty useful," I teased gently. Shampoo blushed again.

A knocking on the door distracted us. "Who is it?" Shampoo yelled in English. A nervous voice answered.

"A delivery from Ms. Frost" he called back. I sighed, then got up and went to the door. The delivery guy handed me a bunch of folders, and left. I wandered back to the couch, and passed a folder to each of my roommates, keeping one for myself. The folder I had seemed to be a roster of the X-men. Powers, name, place of birth, costume, code name. What the hell? Why would they want a costume and a code name? I nudged Ucchan and pointed this out.

"Well, they don't want everyone recognizing them, do they? If everyone knew that a mutant named Cyclops was a boy named Scott Summers, everyone would treat Scott like crap, and every time the X-men fought the Brotherhood, the bill collectors would come knocking"

I frowned. "So we need costumes and codenames too?"

Shampoo laughed. "Silly Arien, of course we is needing them. Call Shampoo the great Cat-Woman!"

I shivered while Ukyo laughed. Damn Neko-ken. I bet she reminded me on purpose of cats. A vindictive idea occurred to me. "I got a better idea. Let's call you Psylocke! Psy for the English word psychic, since you can (sometimes) read minds, and Locke, for the guy you used your powers to peep on!"

The Amazon objected, "Is no peeping! Is not peeping on anyone but Arien and Ukyo!"

"Sure, sugar, sure. We believe you."

"Hey Ucchan, I believe her!"

"Thanks, Arien!" she was all smiles.

"She groped him, while nude. Ah, that guy was so lucky. Having a naked girl fall out of nowhere right into his lap. Mouse would give his glasses for that chance!" I couldn't help myself. Finally, after so many years, now I could tease someone like Nabiki did to me!

Shampoo blanched. "How you know? Er, Shampoo mean, that not true!" The shock on Ukyo's face mirrored my own. I mean, I just made it up. What the hell?

"What actually happened?" Ucchan went for the truth like a C...C…C… one of those things went for a mouse.

My Chinese wife blushed. "Uh, is snuggling with you two, then is falling out of bed, and disappearing into the floor….." she started off.

I elbowed her in the side. "We know this part! What happened next?"

"……..is falling out of ceiling, onto another bed. Is naked man sitting on bed, playing with his……… not know word."

"That's probably a good thing, sugar."

"Is falling on top of man. Man is waving his arms in the air. Shampoo think he fight, fight back. But no get right leverage, is in wrong place. So is…….touching…… things….. Shampoo no want to. Is falling back off the bed, and is falling through the floor again."

I finished the story for her. "And you fell through the ceiling back in our room, having been gone for ten seconds, and I said 'Where did you go? Peeping on the crew?'"

Ucchan cracked up laughing. "And you said 'How you know? You follow?'" I joined her in laughing, falling of the couch.

The Amazon decided to make a deal. "Fine. Am Psylocke. But you is never mentioning that ever again!"

"Fine." "Fine."

"And you is letting me make own costume. Tight, small, and blue."

"Fine." "Fine!" Shampoo in an outfit even tighter and smaller than normal? Yes!

"And you is letting me take you to bed and show you who is true pervert!"

"Fine." "Fi… huh?" Shampoo scooped me of the floor, and slung me over her shoulder like a sack of rice, Ucchan following us to one of the bedrooms. Well, as Mom said once- Engaged couples can do whatever they want, right?


	4. Chapter 3: Queen to White Knight

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to **Questara** and **J. St.C. Patrick**, and **TerraBull** for proofreading it for me. Especially **J. St.C. Patrick, **the man is awesome

Disclaimer: I own neither Xmen nor Ranma. These characters do not belong to me in any way, shape or form. But I sure wish I did.

* * *

Emma Frost strode down the hall of the hotel. It screamed money, class and prosperity, from the ornate chandeliers to the expensive yet tasteful works of art adorning the walls. 

Yes. This was the way life should be. The way life had always been. The way she would ensure life would always be.

She passed a porter, who deftly stepped around her, but she paid no notice. It would be beneath her to notice the help, and could startle them beyond their meager intellect to perform. Besides, she had to see her new acquaintances, and hopefully the newest members of the Hellfire Club. She had promised to give them some time, and indeed she had, but she was getting impatient, and having world-class martial artists would be a good start to reforming the group. She stopped outside the room she had loaned them, and raised her hand to the door. Right before she could knock, she heard yelling from the room.

* * *

"Damn it, when are you gonna stop doing that, honey! Don't you trust us?" 

"Arien should trust wife, is part of good marriage! You is being too, too bad!"

"I'm sorry, ok! It's just habit! I'll get over it sooner or later, so calm down. Please?"

Yes, I was still curling into a ball whenever I woke up, and my bedmates were getting tired of it. I couldn't see why, since it wasn't hurting them, but then again- who understands women? Not me, and I was gonna be stuck as one for quite a while, maybe always. Hopefully not, but knowing my luck, probably.

'Knock knock'

"I'll get it." I rushed out of bed, glad to have an excuse to flee the Unreasonable Feminine Wrath of Doom (UFWoD), grabbing a robe from the coat hanger on the door. Slipping it on, I opened the door, to be confronted by our hostess. She had changed since yesterday, and was now wearing a white women's business suit. While it clung to her body with astonishing tightness, it was still the epitome of restraint from the white leather she wore at the dock. She took one look at the way I was dressed, and was trying to suppress a grin, failing madly.

"I do hope that I am not interrupting anything… important." I looked down, and noticed that I'd forgotten to tie the robe up at the middle. I shrugged- hey, I ain't ever had feminine modesty, and don't plan on getting any either. Looking back at her face, I could see that Emma was trying her hardest not to look at everything that was free to view.

"Oh, don't worry. You saved me from gettin screamed at anyway." I directed her towards the couch. I heard sounds from the bedroom, rustling and bumping, and a minute later an Amazon and an Okonomiyaki chef walked into the room: Shampoo in a light blue dress; Ucchan in her normal outfit. A throwing spatula went flying past my ear, and sunk into the couch next to me. I gave Ukyo the puppy-dog eyes for a moment, letting my voice sound like I was about to cry. "What was that for?" I added a dramatic sniff at the end, and let my lower lip tremble a little.

Ucchan grinned, and picked up her spatula from the couch. "Oh, nothing….." she said innocently. I gulped, knowing I would be in for it as soon as Emma left. Man, most guys would kill to have two hot girlfriends at once like I had, but none of them had a clue how easy it was to get in trouble with either of 'em.

The girls pulled me onto a sofa opposite the White Queen, and I knew it was time to talk business. So, like usual, Shampoo took the lead.

"So, we is thinking about it, and is deciding we is no knowing enough", straight and to the point. "Is wondering, first of all, if you is really a mutant, what is your power?"

The white clad woman gave a one-word answer. "Telepathy." Sad that I had no idea what that meant.

Ukyo nudged me in the side. "She reads minds."

"Hey! You can help Shampoo then, can't you? She can sorta do that, but boy is she bad at it!" Shit. Saotome Verbal Technique backfire. I'd be sleeping on the couch tonight for sure. "So, her mutant name would be Psylocke, that's what we decided." Shampoo was glaring daggers at me, and if I turned my head I was sure I would of seen Ukyo doing the same.

"Oh! Well, I had been wondering what all your powers were. Ms. Tendo was quite informative, but didn't seem to know the details." Frost was ignoring the insult in my statement, and was taking it as fact. Which it was, to be fair.

"If you don't mind our asking, how do you know Nabiki? Or anything about us and Nerima? It's a little confusing?" If Shampoo got the brains, Ucchan got the politeness.

Emma blushed slightly. "Well, it's a long story. But to cut it short, I was on a holiday to Japan, about three years ago. I already spoke Japanese, so I decided to forgo a tour guide. But while my spoken Japanese was impeccable, my written was terrible, and I got lost quickly.

After several hours of wandering around, lost, I found a school named Furinkan High. I waited outside the gates, as it was almost time for school to be let out, and I was hoping to ask someone for directions. When the bell rang, and the students came out, I went to talk with the first girl I saw. She was about 15, whilst I was 19, so she seemed in awe of me. That only increased when she tried to speak to me in English, and I responded in perfect Japanese.

She gave me directions to the Hotel I was staying at, and I tipped her 2000 yen. It was habit, but she seemed surprised by it. So I told her something that I think she took a little too seriously: "Everything has its price, and information has the highest price of all." She, being slightly naive at the time, asked for my e-mail address, asking to sell me any information she found that was worth something. To humor her, I gave it. As I said good-bye, she asked who I was.

'Emma Frost, the White Queen'

And she replied, 'Nabiki Tendo, the Ice Queen'. She had obviously adopted the alias on the spot, to match mine, but I hadn't the heart to say anything about it."

I was in shock at this news, and beside me Ukyo and Shampoo were in the same state. "You mean that YOU made Nabiki the heartless money obsessed bitch that she is today! That girl would sell water to a man dying of thirst, at 40 interest per month! She literally did that to me, like eight times in the same day!" That was when Shampoo was after me, selling me hot water to keep me in male form.

Emma blushed again. "I saw her again four months after you arrived at the Tendo residence. She had been selling me the information on you, and I suspected that you might be a mutant. I arrived in time to see your rather spectacular fight against the diminutive pervert. I was most impressed to see that tornado appear, and afterwards, I had your blood tested for a mutant gene. I was surprised to find out that your X-gene wasn't active. I left a testing kit with Ms. Tendo, and she tested you after every new move you learnt, to see if it had activated. She also sold me an account of everything that happened around you.

On a side note;" she blushed even harder "my telepathic abilities, having manifested themselves after I first met Ms. Tendo, but before I returned to see her, told me that she had something of a crush on me."

I had to whistle at that one. "So Nabiki is the way she is cause she LIKES YOU? Man, that's nuts."

"And yet, it explains so much." noted Ucchan.

Emma shook her head. "Anyway, I'm sure you had other questions than just those." She seemed embarrassed by the idea of having a girl in love with her- kinda strange, considering who was sitting in front of her.

I decided to ask the next question. "You said you wanted to remake the Hellfire Club, right?"

"Indeed"

"So what happened to the old one?"

The White Queen looked sad for a moment. "The Hellfire Club is ancient, dating back to 1746. Originally, it was dedicated to ruling the world at any cost. Some time later, the goal changed to that of ruling mankind benevolently. By 1900, it aimed to bring peace and prosperity to the world, hopefully with us at the top. But not all its members were happy with the way the Hellfire Club was changing. One man, Sebastian Shaw, wanted to return to the goal of world domination. He gathered all the like-minded people of the club, and staged a takeover. The other members resisted this, and in the fight, someone let off a bomb. The buildng collapsed, killing all who were inside. Only I was left alive, as I had used my telepathy to convince Shaw that I was on his side, then never showed up for the meeting. I tried to warn the other members, but failed.

All were influential people, businessmen, politician's, those who had climbed to the top of their field in the search for power. When I decided to reform the Hellfire club, I planned along different lines. The treasury was immense from all the members who had willed their life fortunes to the club, so money was no problem. The typical way of the Hellfire Club was bribes, and between the raw cash and the factories and land that was left to the club, it was unlikley that money would ever be a problem ever again. As such, I decided that the new Hellfire Club should concentrate on the atributes of the members, not their money and connections. My goal was, and still is, to find members who are both powerfull mutants, highly honourable, or ideally, well trained in some way."

Shampoo looked sympathtic. "Aiyah! Is too, too sad story. Is good idea you is having for new club though."

"Yeah, sugar, that's a great idea."

"So, if we were to join, and I'm not saying we are or anthing, we'd be doing what, exactly?" I may not have Shampoos brains, but I'm not stupid either. While this bit about wanting honourable people to help the world sounded good, I was a little confussed as to what we'd actually be doing.

Emma smilled hopefully. It was a small smile, but it spoke lots about how desperate she was to reform this club. "Well, first there are a few others I would like to recruit. Then I would move the Club to Bayville, the city where the X-men, The Brotherhood, and the Morlocks can be found, and try to keep them from doing anything stupid, whilest I kept an eye out for ways to make my vision come to pas. I'd rather not go into specifics just yet, as you still haven't joined, but I would not try to force you into doing anything unethical."

Shampoo had the next question. "Even if you is knowing our history, how is you finding out which boat we is on? Is too, too many boats, yet you is in right place, right time. How?"

Emma smirked at this question. Not an evil smirk, more of an 'I've been waiting for someone to ask this question, let me show off for a while now' smirk. "Well, when you have as much money as I do, you can afford all sorts of toys. One of them was rather useful, a Global positioning system, which locates any person who had their blood fed into the machine. I have your blood, Ranma, so I was able to find you after a week. And," she was anticipating our next question, "Nabiki told me how you left with these two, letting me guess that they were still with you." Once, I saw some anime called 'Tenchi Myio' or something. And in it, there was this mad inventor called Wasshu (I think). Every now and again she would brag, calling herself the Greatest Genius in the Universe! Emma looked about ready to do that right now.

I thought about her offer. Back home, I never was known for thinking a lot, 'cause it aint something I like to do all the time. But I do think occasionally. I was thinking about the White Queen's offer. It did sound good. We'd get other members to spar with, enemies and rivals, and if Emma was as rich as she said she was, the pay would be good. Not that it was a huge thing, but it would be nice to have money, especially as there would be no loan-sharking Tendo sister to worry about here. All up, it sounded pretty good. I looked at Ucchan and Shamps, to see what they were thinking. Ucchan had an interested look, and Shampoo looked happy. I put a questioning frown on my face, and they each gave a tiny nod. No non-martial artist would have noticed, but to us three such signs were as obvious as the nose on my face. I gave a nod in return.

"Well, White Queen, we would be honoured to join the Hellfire Club, if you would take us." Ucchan was sitting up straight, looking formal. I decided to copy her, but with my robe open, it had a slightly more perverted effect. Shampoo did likewise.

If our hostess had been hopeful before, she was grateful as hell now. She bowed, Japanese style. "The Hellfire Club accepts your membership bids. You are now full fledged members of the Hellfire Club, and are entrusted with helping guide its destiny and the destiny of the world." Formal speeches over and done with, she turned to Shampoo. "If you would spend a few moments with me in private, I can show you how to learn English using your powers, and teach it to your teammates the same way."

Shampoo shook her head, surprisingly. "No."

"No?"

"No. Is no wanting to cheat. Is hard way to learn language otherwise, but is good way. Is no wanting to take easy path." I had to agree with that. The Super Soba, the Mark of God, the enchanted Dogi, all of those had been shortcuts, and all ended badly.

Emma looked a little worried. "Well, I won't force you, but let me tell you two things first. In the first place, I used this technique once to learn Russian, and it hasn't damaged me at all. It just gives you knowledge, letting you speak as well as you would your native language, but doesn't make your language perfect.

Secondly, we are in America, and everyone does speak English, so you'll need to learn it any way."

She gave a tiny cough. "Oh, did I forget to mention that I need you to do a mission in about six hours, and not being able to speak English would be a problem?"

"WHAT!" we three yelled at the same time.

"Yes, that would be one of the reasons I was trying to speed up your decision making process- there is a mutant who would be perfect as the next member of our club. Unfortunately, sometime last night, he was found out as a mutant and is on the run from the military. Whilst he was doing an excellent job of keeping hidden, he was found about….. twenty minutes ago."

I bit my lip in thought. We had to do this mission. I spoke terrible English. Shampoo was good, but not good enough to get us through this, from the sounds of it. Well, I for sure wasn't going to make her abandon honour for me, she'd already done that once for me- not killing me when she first found out that the woman she was hunting was also the man who defeated her.

"Hey Shamps, how does this sound- you let Emma teach you how to do it, and you do it to me? After all, Anything-Goes is all about grabbing any advantage, and that sure sounds like one hell of an advantage to me!"

Ukyo nodded her head. "Same here. Your English is good enough to get through living here, but mine isn't."

Shampoo looked doubtful, but nodded. "Fine. Will learn how to do. But is not doing to self. Understand?"

Emma looked relieved. "Yes, that will be adequate. Let us retire to your room, and I will show you how it is done." She didn't bother to ask us if we wanted her to do it- smart woman. After all, while we trusted her, we had only met the day before, and I'd rather have had Shampoo rearranging my head than the White Queen.

"Hey Ranchan, you know what this means?"

"Uhh, no?"

"We have a few hours to kill, and lots of money. Meaning- SHOPPING!"

I whimpered, praying silently to whatever god ruled my life that the moment I died, I was gonna kick some serious ass. "Someone shoot me." I whispered, loudly enough for all to hear, though Ukyo ignored it. I might have been stuck in this dam, horrible, sexy body, but inside I was all guy, damn it!

* * *

And so, half an hour later, Ukyo was dragging me around the city. She had the money from selling Ucchan's, and looked dead set on spending it all. I was trailing behind her, as a part-time packhorse. Part time, as in she would also stop to force me into girly outfits, or watch her get into them. Sure, I had a curse. Sure, I had spent the last two years as a female during bad weather. But now, Ucchan had taken it into her head that it meant that I was as much a girl as I was a boy! I had always had my doubts as to my cute fiancée's sanity, and this expedition was not helping anything. I kept my silence though, since every time I mentioned I was a guy, she'd start groping my chest. In public. While I didn't exactly overflow with feminine modesty, I had enough normal modesty to want to avoid that scene! 

My musings were cut off by a squeal from my semi insane companion. "Look at that! Isn't it cute!" She looked like she was over compensating for years of forced cross-dressing, by over doing it in the sheer girliness department. In this case, she had found a Cosplay shop, and was making googily eyes in front of all the costumes. "Come on honey, let's try them on!" Yup, a lot of catching up on being a girl for her. Although, some of it may have been to pay me back from the morning. Much more effective punishment than a mallet to the head.

I walked slowly into the store, Ucchan having run ahead of me. I couldn't see where she was, but hearing the occasional girly squeal of delight let me home in on her. I passed the section on Dominatrix stuff. (man, thanks to Nabiki and my debts to her, I'd modeled some of that stuff. Ick.) Thankfully, Ukyo seemed to have left it all alone, in favor of things less mature. As I exited the S&M section, and entered the Anime section, I could see visible traces of her passing. Clothes strewn on the floor, on the other shoppers, even on the hanging light bulbs. Man, she had a lot of energy.

I finally caught up with her, finding her in an outfit from either my most perverted dreams, (If I wasn't wearing it) or my biggest nightmares (If I was). She had a pair of tight blue boots with white trim, which came up to her knees, matching the pair of white gloves with blue trim, coming past her elbows. A tiny portion of her legs was covered by a ruffled blue miniskirt, coming over tight white top, a parody of a woman's sailor outfit (although no sailor outfit could show THAT much cleavage). A blue choker adorned her neck, and to complete the tribute to perverts with a lolita fetish, her forehead sported a bronze circlet, with a blue stone in the middle. I dropped the shopping in shock.

Once, I was walking past a park in a town. Can't remember the name of the place, since Pops was more interested in teaching me how to jump than in teaching me about real life at the time. But I remember seeing this boy, about ten years old. He had just bought some gloves, leather ones with no fingers. He put them on, and then came up to me, threatening to beat me up if I didn't give him my lunch money. I musta been seven, and pretty short, so anyone would've thought that he had the advantage.

The bit I found funny at the time was that the boy had no idea how to punch. He held his hands at the wrong position, and was more likely to break his thumb than to damage me with a hit. But since he had those gloves on, he felt 'cool' enough to think he could do it. I ended up beating the crap out of him, of course.

But the next time I went to a park, I went out of my way to see of the same thing would happen if someone else got gloves like that. And it happened, every time a kid got gloves like that, they went stupid, and thought they could beat people up.

Since I was just a kid, I thought that the gloves controlled their brains. Stupid, but to a seven year old, it made a lot of sense.

So when Ucchan posed dramatically, and shouted out her speech, you can see why that old theory made a brief appearance in my head again.

"Halt, Foul Temptress! Shopping is for taking home, not for dropping on the floor! In the name of love and justice, I, Sailor Mercury, will punish you!"

I had to groan at that one. "Ucchan……"

"Yes?"

"You know, there is such a thing as being too girly, right?"

"Yes,"

"And a Sailor Mercury fuku is possibly the most 'Too Girly' thing in the world, right?"

"Yes!"

"So….. uh.. why are you wearing one?"

She gave me a look that said 'What, you don't get it?' "Because its cute!"

"Uhhhhhh……."

The next hour or so was devoted entirely to me watching my cute fiancée try on outfit after outfit, from Cardcaptors to every single thing worn in Final Fantasy- who woulda guessed that Ucchan was an RPG fan? After bullying me into a few, she ended up buying only three outfits. The Sailor Mercury one (she must have seen me drooling at her when she was wearing it), something she called 'Rikku's Lady Luck outfit', and last but not least- a blue dominatrix outfit. I tried my hardest to get her to get rid of it, but to no avail. I did mange to make her promise never to wear it in the bedroom, but then she said some do the scariest words I had ever heard.

"Shampoo's going to look so beautiful in this, don't you think?"

The language barrier was easily broken when it came time to buy all her stuff. Ucchan dumped the three outfits on the desk of a bored looking clerk, and then slammed down a credit card on the table. As Nabiki once said, 'Money is a language that everyone understands'.

As we were walking out of the store, Ukyo gave me the bags with the costumes in. "Hey Ranchan,"

"Yeah?"

"Take these back to the hotel, will you? I want to do a little more shopping."

I was a little confused. Why would she want me when shopping for weird outfits, but not when shopping for other stuff? Well, I might not have learned a lot about women, apart from how to use the plumbing, but I had learnt the most important fact of all: They don't make sense. Don't question them, and you don't get confused. If you break that rule, everything falls apart. "Sure thing. Remember, we gotta be back at the hotel soon, so don't take too long."

"Yes mother." She said with a fake pout.

* * *

'Knock knock knock' 

"Hey Shampoo! Open up! I forgot my key," I yelled, hoping that they weren't meditating or something. When someone's meditating, they're almost impossible to wake up by yelling, if they do it right. Fortunately for me, they weren't. The door opened, and a blue-haired Amazon stuck her head out.

"Oh, is you." I thought she sounded depressed for a moment. Chalking it up to my imagination, I passed her the bags.

"Hey Shampoo, could ya take these? I really gotta go bathroom."

As I walked away, I heard an excited gasp from the Amazon. But as my tiny girl-form bladder was insisting that we get to a toilet, I put it out of my mind.

By the time I had returned, Shampoo had disappeared into our bedroom, taking the bags with her. She had locked the door, and showed no signs of letting me in. I shrugged, musing about the weirdness if women, and hopped on the couch, intent on watching some TV.

"Ouch!"

I shuffled in my seat slightly, confused as to why the couch was so lumpy.

"Ow! Get off! You're squashing me!"

I shook my head. Some of the voices on the TV sounded like Emma. I absently wondered where she was.

"If you don't get off me, you are going to spend the rest of your life convinced that you are a female version of Happosai, who wants to steal men's boxer shorts!"

That didn't sound good. I felt sorry for the poor sap on the TV. Then something rang a bell: Happosai. How would he get mentioned in American TV? Wait, why was some of the voices in Japanese? Oh shit.

I leapt off the couch, leaving a squashed looking woman in white behind me. "Ahhh……. Sorry?" I offered as an apology.

"Oh no, quite alright, I love having a face full of transvestite bottom." I could have been wrong, but I thought I detected some small amount of sarcasm from the White Queen.

"Ahh…. so….. uhhhhh…… How did the lessons go? Shampoo a decent telapat yet?" Boy, I sure was a smooth speaker.

"Telepath. And she is making some progress, though she lacks both the skill and the raw power to be much use. Her telepathy is without a doubt one of the weakest examples I have ever seen." She was still giving me the evil eye, but being civil. It almost made me miss Nerima, where I'd just get beaten up, then all would be forgotten. Weird foreigners.

"So, will she ever be able to use it for anything?" If she could be civil, I could be too.

"To strangers and enemies, she will be able to sense if they are telling the truth or lying. But to friends, if they trust her, she will be able to scan their mind, and add knowledge. To anyone within a mile diameter, she will be able to send messages. That distance may increase if she is trying to communicate with people she has a deep connection with. At the moment, that would include you, Ukyo, her father and her great-grandmother."

"Does that mean she can teach me English? And Ucchan?"

"Indeed. She has the English language uploaded from me, ready to give to you. Perhaps now would be a good time to let her show you her new skills." She was itching to get rid of me, I could tell.

"Arien! What you wait for? Is time to learn!" Shampoo called out. I bowed a goodbye to Emma, and walked as fast as I could towards the bedroom.

The bedroom looked the same as always, except for an unusually full rubbish bin and a bulging bad in the corner. I ignored these, in favor of an overly excited Amazon sitting on the bed. Shamps was rubbing her hands tighter gleefully.

"So, is this where you teach me English? Or were ya just trying to get me in here without Ucchan?" I stuck my foot in my mouth again. As evidenced by the twitch in Shampoo's eye.

"Is teaching English. You is just having to sit down, and keep all thoughts out of head. For you, is going to be too, too easy." Shit, I was getting everyone pissed at me today. Made me homesick. I obeyed my bedmate, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. I shut my eyes, and cleared my mind. Just like meditating, an exercise I knew how to do, but never liked. I let myself go, trying to be as open as possible to whatever she had to do.

No amount of preparing would have been sufficient. It was like having a book shoved in my mouth. Yes, mouth. As in, feeling a horrible taste, and having all your teeth bent backwards. Well, not teeth, it was parts of my mind, but the analogy was otherwise accurate. But other than the discomfort, there was another sensation. I couldn't feel the knowledge coming in to me, not at all. Instead, I felt all sorts of things make sense. Suddenly, I knew that my old English teacher was almost always wrong. I knew what the label on the complimentary soap said. I knew what Emma had said to her driver, and how accurate Shampoo had been in translating it. I knew what they had been whispering at the Cosplay store. My eyebrow twitched as I recalled what they were saying about me in the outfits Ucchan had picked for me. I had half a mind to go back there and beat them all up.

A rapping on the back of my head brought me back to the world of the living. I opened my eyes, and stood up unsteadily. I felt slightly dizzy, something I thought I would never feel again- thanks to another of Pop's training exercises. Shampoo looked at me expectantly. "So, did it work? Is you understanding me?"

I was slightly confused. "Um, yeah. Why wouldn't I? Hey, why don't you try speaking in English, to see if it worked?"

The blue-haired Amazon gave me an odd look. "I did." She paused for a second. "Is you still knowing what I is saying?"

"Yeah, but why did your Japanese get better, then go back to normal? Wait a second…." Things started adding up. "That was English, wasn't it?"

Shamps gave a happy nod. "Yes! You are now speaking too, too good English! Like I am."

"Why is it that you speak better English than Japanese? I mean, you lived in Japan for like two years, so why is it so much worse than your English?"

"Because, is learning English from small child. Why you think my Japanese got so good, after a month? Practice at learning other languages. Is also knowing a little French."

Wow, you think you know someone. "Oh yeah, Ucchan said she had some more shopping to do, and she sent me back here alone. I ain't sure when she'll be back."

A knocking from the door interrupted our conversation. "You wanna get that?"

* * *

Incase the paragraph at the beginning misled you, The White Queen isn't evil. She is a caring person, but an aristocrat through and through. 


	5. Chapter 4: The Black Hand

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to **Questara** and **J. St.C. Patrick**, and **TerraBull** for proofreading it for me. Especially **J. St.C. Patrick, **the man is awesome. Oh, thanks to all the guys at for all their input, ideas and inspiration. Without them, this fic would never have occurred to me!

Disclaimer: I own neither Xmen nor Ranma. These characters do not belong to me in any way, shape or form. But I sure wishthey did.

* * *

A knocking from the door interrupted our conversation. "You wanna get that?" I asked my Amazon fiancée . 

She shook her head, her magnificent blue tresses doing a waterfall impression. "No. I want to meditate."

I sighed, and got up. Wandering over to the door, I passed the White Queen, who just glowered at me. Thinking bad thoughts about over-sensitive women, I opened the door.

"Hey Ucchan, what took you sooooo….." I trailed off as the door revealed that our visitor wasn't my cute fiancée e after all. It was the driver of Emma's car. "Oh, sorry about that, uh, Jeeves?" I hazarded a guess.

The suited man bowed slightly. "Quite all right, Ranma-sama."

I found something slightly wrong with this statement. Namely, he had said it in English, yet added –sama at the end of my name. I pointed this out to him, and he responded with a slight blush.

"Well, Ranma-sama, a person in my position is supposed to refer to people as Sir or Madam, or Mistress. I was unsure which would be appropriate to you, and picked the –sama suffix as a compromise. Would you prefer I address you otherwise?"

I took a good look at him as he said this, to see if he was being sarcastic. He was a westerner, English I guessed. His slightly wrinkled face sat below gray and thinning hair, while the rest of him was covered by a fairly posh looking suit. His outfit and bearing reminded me of the Umisen-ken, designed to avoid notice. All up, he didn't seem like the type to make jokes.

"Sir would be nice," I mused aloud. "But then people would get a little suspicious in public. And I SO don't wanna be called Madam. Ah well, stick with Ranma-sama if ya want. But I'd realy like it if ya just called me Ranma."

The plain man shook his head. "I am sorry, Ranma-sama, but I cannot do that. For generations my family have been chauffeurs to the Frost family. It would be going against everything I, and my family, stood for. It would be like you picking on a small child for his lunch money- a disgrace to myself, and my family art."

This made sense to me- some of the families I'd met; the rich ones at least, had manservants or ninja whose families had guarded the family for generations. This was a little different, but the same could be said of the whole western world. So I just shook my head. "Nah, Ranma-sama's okay with me. Hey, what do ya want anyway? Should I get Emma?"

He bowed slightly. "If that would not trouble you, or interrupt her, Ranma-sama."

"Sure." I turned around, and breathed in. "OI! EMMA! JEEVES WANTS YA!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a slight twitch of Jeeves's eyebrow.

"Whats with all the yelling, honey?"

"YAH!" I jumped up, and clung to the ceiling. Right behind the driver stood Ucchan, holding a bag of what looked like hardware supplies, and smiling slightly. I sighed, and flopped back down to the floor. "Don't sneak up on me like that, Ucchan!" I sounded as menacing as I could, but my efforts were rewarded by a blank look.

"So I'm guessing that Shampoo taught you English then, Ranchan." It was more a statement than a question. A slightly irritable statement too. I started going through all the events of the day, wondering what could have caused this mood, in reverse order.

"Hey, I'm sorry I left you, but I thought you wanted some alone time or something, you know? I didn't wanna be smothering you, so I didn't argue, I swear I wasn't trying to ditch you, honestly!" I started speeding up as she got more irritable looking. Thankfully, Jeeves muttered something quietly, but audibly.

"Still in English, Ranma-sama."

"Thanks, Jeeves." I switched languages. "Uh, sorry about that Ucchan. I'm having a little trouble with telling which language is which." I gave a weak smile, hoping she wasn't still pissed.

She wasn't. "Its ok, honey. As long as you weren't showing off, I don't mind."

"Would I ever show off? Me! Show off?" I asked indigently.

She rolled her eyes. "Lets see: the time you got your strength back, the time you cured Akane of the Super Soba, the time you beat Pantyhose, the time you beat Akane in breast size, the time…"

I waved my hands in fount of me in a warding gesture. "Fine, fine, fine! I show off every now and again. But I'm the best! I have the right!" I thought for a second. "And how did you know about all that stuff? You weren't even there for most of it!"

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "The Ranma hotline, one of Nabiki's ideas. Phone up and find out what's been in the life of an aquatranssexual martial artist, updated every hour."

"Indeed, that was very informative. I regret not checking it more often." Came from right behind my ear. I squawked and jumped to the ceiling again. This time it was the White Queen who'd snuck up on me.

"Gah!" I squawked again. "Why is everyone trying to give me a heart attack today!"

Emma just rolled her eyes. "You called me, remember?"

I fell to the ground again, and rubbed the back of my head in embarrassment. "Yeah, Jeeves wanted a word."

The white clad woman gave me another glare. I was really wishing that she'd just hit me and get it over with, but she seemed determined to stay mad at me. Thankfully Jeeves saved me from saying something stupid. "Indeed, Madam, if it would suit you."

"Yes, they joined. So perhaps I should make formal introductions." She paused for a second, her forehead scrunching cutely. "So I would like to meet," Shampoo chose this minute to open the door, "Shampoo, also known as Psylocke! Mutant powers: telepathy."

Shampoo, probably remembering how strong her mind reading talents weren't, had more to add. "And teleport, using shadows." I had almost forgotten her display on the boat. In our apartment, she'd fallen off the bed, into the crack between the side of our bed and the wall. I hadn't thought it was important at the time, but it was totally in shadows. And judging by the expression on Ucchans face, she'd forgotten too.

Jeeves bowed low to the floor. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress Psylocke."

Our new boss continued her introductory speech. "And Ukyo and Ranma, also known as….." her voice trailed off expectantly.

I waved my hands in front of me. "No way in hell! Uh-uh! Not saying anything! Its too embarrassing!"

Ukyo dropped her bag and made a stupid pose. "Sailor Mercury, defender of love and justice!"

Emma just rolled her eyes at our antics. "Ukyo and Ranma, who would prefer not to mention their powers just yet. Ukyo, Ranma, Shampoo, meet Jeeves, also known as Gateway. A powerful mutant, he is capable of forming portals over great distances and with great accuracy, able to teleport people around the world."

"Does that mean he's a member too?" Asked my cute fiancée .

Jeeves's face showed a peculiar blend of apology and offence. "No, Mistress Ukyo. I am Madam Frost's manservant. It wouldn't be proper for me to join. I merely follow her wishes."

"With abilities like his, he makes an excellent chauffeur." Emma gave a slight grin.

Ukyo looked like she was about to argue the point, but I gave a tiny shake of my head. It was like our private code between the three of us, moving less than a millimeter, but doing so in such a way that it stood out like Kodachi in a retirement home.

Ucchan nodded. "Nice to meet you, Gateway."

Shampoo smiled at him. "Same here."

I just flipped him a grin. Not that I wasn't glad to meet him or anything, but we had just been talking, so I figured that counted as an introduction.

Jeeves bowed again. It seemed to be a habit to him. "Madam, I have located an entry point. All preparations are complete."

The White Queen smiled. "Excellent. Shampoo, Ukyo, Ranma, if you would please get ready."

I was puzzled. "Ready for what?"

"Ready for a rescue mission."

In our room, Ucchan, Shamps and I were getting changed. We didn't have costumes or anything, so it mostly consisted of clothes that wouldn't get in the way in combat. Ucchan had her combat Spatula strapped across her back, and was fastening a bandolier of throwing spatulas across her front, from her left shoulder to her right hip. Shampoo had her Bonboris in hand. She hadn't concealed them using the Amazon Hidden Weapons Technique. What that did, functionally, was to make each object smaller, flatter. Difficult and draining to do for any sustained period, Shampoo was pretty good at it, but it wasn't necessary yet. As for me, I had exchanged my clothes for a set of Ucchans spares. The pants were much easier to fight in, after all.

A moment later, we exited our bedroom, and walked back to the lounge where Emma was waiting. She had changed back into her white leather outfit, and was sitting on the couch she'd been on earlier. Jeeves stood behind her, and to the left. "If you would all sit down, I shall give you the mission briefing." Emma seemed a lot more focused and serious than I'd seen her before, which I had to suppose was a good thing.

The three of us sat down on a couch opposite Emma, Ukyo on my left, Shampoo on my right. No snuggling this time, it was all too serious.

Emma cleared her throat. "When the mutant population was revealed to the world, the government set up several task forces, each with the idea of managing the mutant threat. One of these, calling themselves 'The Black Hand' was designed specifically for locating mutants who were too powerful, and killing them. One of their members was actually a mutant all along, but managed to keep it secret. I believe he was trying to keep the 'good' mutants from being killed, while helping take care of the corrupt ones.

As I understand it, he was sneaking around their base one night, when he found an old friend of his, a fellow mutant. From what I can gather, this mutant was being used as a harvesting ground for explosives."

Ukyo looked confused. "How can you 'harvest' explosives from a person?"

Emma looked sad. "This mutants power has something to do with explosions, though I don't know more than that. At any rate, it is done by having a tube sucking out brain fluid from the mutant, as that contains the properties of this mutants powers."

Shampoo went pale. "We have to stop that!"

The White Queen nodded. "Yes, your mission is to get both mutants out of there. The first one you must find is a man named Brian Ship. He prefers to be known by his military codename however, Bishop. You must break into the military facility where he is being held, find him, get him to take you to the other mutant prisoner, and get both of them out of there.

Gateway will provide a portal as your entrance into the facility, and will provide a portal back from the same spot."

"What about you?" I asked. I was wondering if she was just gonna make us do all the work.

"I shall get Gateway to teleport me close to the facility, and provide telepathic coverage of the area. Unlike the three of you, I have extensive training with my mutant powers, but little in combat."

"Ok, I guess." Well, I sure didn't want her to get killed.

"What about map?" Asked my Amazon wife.

"I was unable to find a map of the facility, so your best bet is to find a prisoner to interrogate. Shampoo, if you find an officer, I can relay my telepathy through you and get the information on where to find Bishop."

"Do we know anything Bishop's powers, or anything about his friend?" Ucchan asked.

"Bishop is immune to energy blasts, which will be of little use on your mission. As for his friend, what information I have is confusing. Some reports speak of a single mutant, but others speak of there being two. I suspect that he is schizophrenic."

Shamps muttered in my ear, "Two personalities."

Emma frowned slightly. "I believe that most of the Black Hand are stationed off base, so mostly you'll only have to deal with routine security guards. But I have received hints that they have hired another mutant to their team, deliberately. So be wary."

"Anythin else?" I asked.

The White Queen looked indecisive for a moment. "It could just be the capture of Bishop, but there has been an influx of equipment and scientists into the facility. The mutant they have hired is a part of that. They seem to be conducting an experiment of some kind, and it is unclear whether or not it involves the captured mutants.

That's all the information I have, unfortunately. Now, Jeeves."

The butler took a step back. "Very good, Madam." The wrinkled man sat down on the floor, cross legged, and closed his eyes. Quickly, the air between us distorted, twisting. I caught a brief smell of a photocopier, before the portal formed. It was green, a constantly rotating spiral in mid air. Through the other side I could see trees. Emma gave us a wave, and stepped through.

The portal went blue a moment, and then went green again. This time, I could see a closed metal door. Jeeves voice came floating out from behind the portal. "Ready, Mistress's. Just walk through." The strain in his voice was obvious. He couldn't hold the portal for long.

I took a deep breath, and with my fiancée and my wife beside me, I strode through the portal.

It wasn't like I'd expected. It was like walking out of a room, into another room. No funny feelings or pyrotechnics at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Shampoo lifting her Bonboris into a ready guard. Ukyo had unslung her combat spatula, holding the blade end low to the ground. As for the room itself, it looked like a walk-in broom closet, mops everywhere, and cleaning equipment lining the shelves.

"We got a lotta ground to cover, everyone." I said. "Ucchan, you wait here. Shamps, you look for someone important, and do your thing. I'm gonna sneak around, see if I can find either of the prisoners, or maybe even a barracks or something." There. Everything set.

"WHAT?" "WHAT?"

Or not. "What's wrong with my plan?" I asked, feeling slightly insulted. After all, it was a great plan! I came up with it!

"You're telling me to wait here, honey? While you go off into danger?" Her voice was calm and reasonable, which alerted me to the fact that right now, she was anything but.

"Well, someone has to guard here, or we might end up with heaps of bad guys guarding our way out!" I blustered indigently.

"And why don't you do it?"

"Because, if shit hits the fan, I gotta technique that'll let me stay hidden. You don't." I didn't want her to know about the Umisen-ken, but I had no other choice.

She grit her teeth. "Fine. But I refuse to like it!"

I looked to Shampoo, seeing if she had any objections. She didn't look happy, but didn't say anything. "Alright! Lets move, people!" I opened the door, looking for any soldiers. Not seeing any, I took off, moving at a light jog, which rivaled Olympic runners. I could hear Shampoo doing the same, in a different direction to mine.

* * *

It was a weird place. All the walls were painted white, over what looked like concrete. I guessed that the whole base was underground. All the doors were the same, made of metal, and looking sturdy. Probably bullet proof. And it smelled like a hospital. The whole place, not one window and smelling like a hospital. I absently wondered what the suicide rate was for people stationed there. Probably high. 

There didn't seem to be a lot of people, either. After a ten-minute cruse through the facility, I had only seen a handful of people, most of whom were secretaries. Whenever I saw one, I'd just dart into a side corridor. The fact that I didn't have to use the Umisen-ken worried me. If all the guys with guns weren't here, where were they?

A janitor came into view, pushing on some funny machine with spinning brushes on the bottom, and I ducked into another corridor. I scowled to myself. This approach wasn't working. So, it was time to do what I did best: improvise. I cleared my mind of emotion, of desire. Instead of trying to freeze my emotions, for the Soul of Ice, I concentrated on nothing, as hard as I could. On being nothing. On desolate emptiness. Anyone who would have been paying attention at the time would have been startled to notice that I faded from sight, as I slipped into the Umisen-ken.

The Umisen-ken, one of the smartest things Pop ever invented. Unlike the bulk of his martial arts knowledge, taught to him by a perverted dwarf, the Umisen-ken was his own invention. Designed for stealing, it made the user invisible to anyone who might be watching. Well, technically the user stayed visible. Ever heard of the blind spot? Everyone has one. It's where your eyes just wont see something, even though it's within your range of vision. As a martial artist, mine was small enough to be almost non-existent. But the Umisen-ken made the user into a blind spot, where no one could see them. Not much use against laser beams, but perfect against people watching, even by camera. Now, it was possible to use it to camouflage Chi with it at higher levels, but that was only useful against other fighters. Against janitors? Total overkill.

Unseeable, I crept out of the corridor, and started following the janitor.

* * *

The White Queen sat cross-legged in the woods, meditating. A mere hundred yards away the Black Hand facility lay, marked by a small aircraft hanger. What a normal observer would see would be a large shed, situated out in the middle of nowhere. But a more in-depth examination would show that the hanger was merely the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface, the Black Hand facility extended four stories downward, and over half a kilometer in diameter on each level below the first. 

Shifting slightly, Emma cleared her mind, and activated her telepathy. She cast her mind out beyond her body, pushing outwards, searching. Tentatively, but with purpose, she increased the area she was monitoring. First across, to make sure she had no unwanted watchers out in the woods, then down, into the Black Hand base.

After five minutes, she was beginning to wonder if they had some kind of telepathic shielding in there. She had only found a handful of people, and all of those were janitors, secretaries, and a repairman or two. She reached out still further, looking for Ranma and her girls, to give them a heads up.

'Shampoo, can you hear me?' Emma asked telepathically.

'Yes, I can,' Shampoo responded the same way. 'What's happening?'

'Almost nothing. I've scanned the first three levels, and found nothing but secretaries and menial workers. Not even a single security guard'

Shampoo concurred. 'I've been looking around, and I haven't seen anyone worth scanning. I thought you said there'd be scientists.'

'I thought there would be. My advise is to scan a secretary, and see if you can learn anything.'

'Ok. Could you pass that information on to Ranma and Ukyo?'

Emma gave a small start. 'Aren't you all together?'

Shampoo broadcasted irritation. 'No. Ranma told us to split up. He's exploring, and Ukyo is guarding the exit portal.'

The White Queen groaned. 'Can she do anything without confusing matters,' she asked rhetorically.

A combination of exasperation, amusement and lust came from the Amazon operative. 'No. Makes it more fun, though.'

Emma buried her face in her hands. 'I'll tell your Arien and Ukyo. Why don't you find a computer to log on to, and look for anything interesting.' She paused for a moment. 'You DO know how to operate a computer, right?'

An image of rolled eyes was her response. 'Yes! Geeze, you think that just because I'm from China, I'm a complete savage? How do you think I learned such good English, in the heart of the mountains? Visions?'

'Is that a yes?'

'YES! Well, I can't hack or anything, but I can use one,' She amended.

'Well, if you need a password, call me, and I'll relay my telepathy through you to get one from a secretary or something.'

Emma withdrew her telepathic tendrils from the blue haired telepath. For a moment, she rested, savoring the tang of the clean air. The birds were singing, and if she hadn't had her telepathic gift telling her that the ground below her was a high-class military facility, she never would have guessed that there was another human within a hundred kilometers.

Brief reprieve over, the White Queen got back to work. Having already spotted Ranma on her previous scan, she 'looked' at the spot she had found her last time. And found an unconscious janitor. Frost cursed to her self. She should never have left that red head alone!

* * *

I grimaced. Squeazing into a tiny air vent was, looking back on it, not the smartest thing to do. Sure, this girl body had smaller shoulders, so in theory I'd fit better, you'd think? Wrong. 

This cursed form of mine had the 'privilege' of being built like a supermodel, and that was BEFORE I became a mutant. Now, I could probably get a rise out of a gay man. Joy. But that meant that my chest, already large, was now too big to fit properly in the tiny duct. But I had never let tiny things like common sense or extreme pain stop me before, so I was dammed if I was gonna this time!

Besides, this was what the janitor 'volunteered' before I knocked him out. I'd followed the janitor as he did his rounds. When he stopped, to put away his weird cart thingy, I'd grabbed him by the collar and pinned him to the wall of the cupboard, shutting the door behind us. A look at my body in the low light, a little heavy breathing on my part, and he was only too willing to do whatever I wanted. He had spine to rival Gosunkugi from school.

And this guy (never caught his name) told me where everyone was- a big thing was happening in the bottom of the facility. The only people left were those who did cleaning and stuff, and anyone else not qualified to know what was happening.

But while my informant had never been down the bottom, he knew a way to get there. And just my luck, it involved the vents. Still, better than a bathhouse or something, like woulda always happened back home. Even if I wouldn't get called a pervert for changing in the girls' side, something would have happened. Call it karma, or magnetism, but that sorta stuff always happened to me.

So after knocking him out and leaving him in his own cupboard, I was off down the vents. And cursing myself for my clothes choice. Ucchans top, which I had been wearing, was way too hot and scratchy for these close quarters, and I'd taken it off. And since I hated wearing girl's underwear, I had no bra on underneath. So it was torture trying to navigate the tight insides of the air ducts.

By my reckoning I had made it to somewhere between the third floor and the fourth. The fourth was my destination, so was almost there. But if all the movies I'd seen were right, that meant that about now I'd find the mutant rats, the robots with chainsaws, and the lasers that'd slice me into little pieces.

Then again, movies recommended to me by Hiroshi and Daisuke were probably not the smartest choices to use as guides. Especially in life or death situations.

I paused at an intersection for a moment to get my bearings. The Janitor had only known the layout of the ducts to the end of the third floor. After that, his knowledge ran out. That meant that I'd reached the beginning of where everyone was. As I was thinking about which way to go, I heard a noise. It was faint, barely detectable, but it caught my attention. I could make out a voice, faintly. I caught the word 'finally', but the rest was too quiet to make out.

Still, quiet was better than nothing. I started crawling towards the source.

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention," said Dr Harvey, standing proud in front of almost fifty fellow scientists. This brought a small chuckle from the crowd, as there was not a woman among them. This wasn't due to sexism on the part of the company, but more because of how nerdy the scientists were. They were the sorts of people who never had a date in their life, and having a female who spoke geek was sufficient to distract the whole lot of them from work. This had necessitated having separate branches for the different sexes. 

"I say again, may I have your attention please," called Dr Harvey again. This time the crowd quieted down, anxious to hear what the man had to say. Each man in the room had been part of the project, dedicating the last year towards its completion. Whole new technologies were created as mere byproducts of the work, but none knew the entirety of the project. None but Dr Harvey.

"Now, I know everyone has things to do, so I'll try to make this quick. For the last year, each and every one of you has been working nonstop towards this project, but none of you know its aim, or even its name. You have been working on anything from nanobots, to understanding various genetic codes of mutants, to ancient sword crafting and metal folding techniques. Today, we see the fruits of our labor." The Doctor paused, taking a sip from a glass of water.

"As you all know, our agency is dedicated to exterminating mutants who present too great a threat. But, as the mutant Apocalypse demonstrated, mere sentinels are insufficient to the task. As are normal soldiers. And while we do use mutants of our own, that has its limitations. We are unable to capture any of the power needed for our tasks.

Indeed, other agencies have found the same problem. Our sister, Hydra, had made the most significant progress. They cloned a powerful mutant, infusing her with adamantium, making her almost invincible. This had the unfortunate property of ensuring that, when she went rogue, they would be unable to stop her. X-23 has almost succeeded in wiping out Hydra."

Dr Harvey gestured to a group of scientists near the font. "As part of an effort to remain viable, we offered to fund their rebirth, in exchange for assistance with our project. They gave us a supply of raw adamantuim, and equipment and personnel to use it. This was crucial to our experiments."

An entire wall became transparent, and behind it could be seen a normal looking woman. Asian linage, she had the bearing of a proud, haughty woman. She had long black hair, and was wearing a black leotard. She had the stillness of a corpse.

"This is our pride and joy, the result of all our experiments. Her entire skeleton has not been coated with adamantuim the way Hydra practiced. Instead, her skeleton has been replaced by adamantuim altogether. The adamantuim bones are hollow, only a millimeter thick. This hollow structure contains a vacuum. This results in a far lighter, more maneuverable product than Hydra was capable of coming up with."

The Doctor gestured to the still woman. "Instead of wrist mounted blades, her very fingers are blades. Observe."

The woman behind the glass grabed the skin of her right hand, and pulled it off. A few of the scientists went white. "Oh, that was just a glove," remarked the Doctor.

Underneath the glove, her hand was a dark gray. Her fingers were pointed. The woman held up her hand, wiggling her fingers. "The dexterity of the digits has not been compromised in any way." Dr Harvey injected. The gathered scientists nodded appreciatively.

The fingers of the woman suddenly extended several times their normal length, becoming more blade like along their length. Harvey continued his monologue. "The fingers can become up to thirty centimeters long, losing little dexterity as a trade off. They become sharper at the end, and become capable of cutting with the middle of the fingers as well."

The woman retracted her blades, and lowered her hands. "In order for her to survive this procedure, we created nanobots to emulate the mutant healing power of the fastest healing mutant in the world: Wolverine. As an accidental byproduct of this, our creation has enhanced healing. We also used a combination of cybernetic enhancements and nanobots to improve the overall strength and speed. Physically, this specimen is a perfect counter for Wolverine."

A scientist from the crowd spoke up. "What about mentally?"

Dr Harvey smiled. "I'm glad you asked that question. We have totally reprogrammed the woman used for this. We deleted most of her personality, a large portion of her personality, and remade her. She was fused with the personality of one of our dead operatives, who prior to her demise, was one of our best. As an added precaution, we added an unwavering loyalty to her superior officers; a remote override for her personality, and a voice activated self-destruct function."

"Why most of her personality and memories? Why not just wipe her totally?" asked the same scientist who had spoken up previously.

The Doctor got a knowing smile on his face. "Because of why we picked this subject to work with in the first place. She despises mutants, and had no qualms about killing, but most importantly she has combat training far superior to anything we have ever seen. Before this procedure, she was capable of feats that would seem like mutant powers. Combined with our enhancements? She is the perfect weapon."

"What is her name?" Asked anther scientist.

"We codenamed her Lady Deathstrike," said Harvey. "The soldier she was fussed with was called Yuriko Oyama." The Doctor withdrew a coin from his pocket. "I had this coin made as a souvenir of this project, made from the last of our adamantuim." He positioned it on his thumb. "Lets use it to decide. Heads, we call her the name of the personality we used, Yuriko Oyama. Tails, we call her by the name of the girl we used as the body to build on," He flipped the coin into the air.

"Kodachi Kuno."

* * *

Authors Notes: 

Yes, another chapter. This is definatly my most high priority story, though I have a coupple of others half finished. Like always, **J. St.C. Patrick **from has saved you all from my terible spelling. **TerraBull,** like always, gave me even more ideas to work with, so a special thanks to you two.

I know that some authors plan out their fics while their still writing them, but I have a plot outlined, all the way to the end. So dont worry about writers block, that is a long while away.

And to all the people wondering about Ranma and Ukyo's powers- no, you havent missed them. I'm revealing Ukyo's in the next chapter or so, but you'll have to wait a while to find out about Ranma. Though, I have been foreshaddowing their powers in about every chapter, so some of you may have guessed.

And, to rant: FORMATING! SUCK ASS!


	6. Chapter 5: Check

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to **Questara** and **J. St.C. Patrick**, and **TerraBull** for proofreading it for me. Especially **J. St.C. Patrick, **the man has gotta be 500 times better than Microsoft Word spellchecker. Oh, thanks to all the guys at for all their input, ideas and inspiration. Without them, this fic would never have occurred to me!

Spotlight goes to **Rei-chan** today for help with the real colours of the Moko Takabishia and the Shi Shi Hokodan.

* * *

"We codenamed her Lady Deathstrike," said Harvey. "The soldier she was fused with was called Yuriko Oyama." The Doctor withdrew a coin from his pocket. "I had this coin made as a souvenir of this project, made from the last of our adamantuim." He positioned it on his thumb. "Let's use it to decide. Heads, we call her the name of the personality we used, Yuriko Oyama. Tails, we call her by the name of the girl we used as the body to build on," He flipped the coin into the air.

"Kodachi Kuno."

I lay in growing horror as I heard the scientists talking. Kodachi? She was dangerous before, and now? I'd heard of adamantuim from Emma's files. They said that it was totally indestructible. You could dump it into the sun and it wouldn't even bend. A sword made from it would never need sharpening, or be possible to break. And these idiots had made Kodachi out of it?

I remembered how we parted ways, and shivered slightly. That girl wanted me dead. Way more seriously than Ryoga or Mousse ever had. After all, she had loved my guy form. When she found out that 'her manly Ranma-sama' was just an illusion created by the 'Pig-tailed harlot' she went psycho. She came close to killing Mom in her attempt to get me.

Something hit me in the mouth, and brought me back to reality. Inching back from the grate I'd been eavesdropping from, I spat out the intruder. It was the coin that the Doctor had flipped. Hard learned reflexes conditioned into me by Pop at a young age came to the front. The reflex of grabbing free money under any situation. I pocketed the coin, and turned around. Even if the two mutants were down here, I had to tell everyone about Kodachi, or Lady Deathstrike as they were calling her. Not that I couldn't beat her or anything.

As I crawled snake-like out of the air vents, I could hear Dr Harvey speaking again. "Drat. Who wants to be the one to fetch the coin from up there? I really liked that coin."

The reply was one of fear. "No way, sir. Not with the rats in the vents." Wuss.

Harvey seemed to agree with my silent musings. "Rats! Grow a spine, dammit! Rats aren't that bad! And for gods sake, you must be a hundred times their size!"

"But sir…. Rabies…" The scientist spluttered weakly.

Another voice spoke up. "Rabies is far from the scariest thing that those rats have to offer."

"What do you mean?" The way his voice changed meant that Dr Harvey had just turned around to face the person who'd just spoken.

"In our testing the adamantuim bonding process, we started on rats. Several survived the process."

"But they're all in cages, right?"

"Have you ever had a pet rat, sir? I have. They'll try to gnaw through anything. When you add in adamantuim teeth into the equation, you get something quite impossible to keep captured. I expect that, given the nano-probes healing properties, most of them are still alive."

The conversation got too quiet for me to hear any more, but now I was beginning to get worried. Invincible, healing rats? Sounded like something from a cheesy game, but then again, so did the idea of a flying minotoar with tentacles and an eel for a tail. Or a three hundred year old woman standing on top of a shark, sending shark shaped waves as an attack. Or…. hell, most of my life.

* * *

Up above the Black Hand base, the deer and other animals that lived without any knowledge of what lived beneath their feet were treated to an unusual sight. True, as animals they were unable to understand the view, but even they knew that what was happening was something that no one had ever seen before. Emma Frost, the White Queen, perhaps the single richest person in the world, one of the most powerful telepaths in existence, and well known for her cunning, beauty, and elegance, was acting somewhat contrary to her norm.

The White Queen was currently smashing her head against a tree, and had been doing so for the last ten minutes. Had anyone listening understood English, they would have been treated to a variety of curses involving redheads.

In mid head smash, she paused. A trickle of blood could be seen trickling down from her forehead, but for once she paid her looks no mind. All her concentration was on the familiar touch she'd just felt. The touch of the accursed redhead.

Emma, torn between joy and rage, sent out a telepathic tendril, finding the wayward girl. Adrenaline surged through the link, as did a combination of joy, bloodlust, and irritation. A fight. A covert operation, and she'd managed to find a fight. Emma smacked her head into the tree again. She should have known.

She opened a link with Ranma. This would be far more difficult than when she'd spoken with Shampoo. Shampoo was able to transmit her thoughts with her own telepathic gift, effectively halving Emma's workload. With Ranma, she'd have to transmit her thoughts as she read the redhead's mind to find out the reply. While this was within her capabilities, it was neither pleasant nor easy.

'Ranma? Are you there?' The White Queen asked, removing any hint of anger from her tone.

A slightly panicky response came back to her. 'Emma? That you?'

'Yes. Now where have you been? Your mind disappeared completely ten minutes ago. What the hell happened?' Some of her irritation leaked into her 'voice'.

'Ten minutes… I think that's when I went into the fourth floor.'

'Telepathic shielding, I guess. Though I thought that only Magneto and another black opps force had access to that technology.'

'Hydra?'

'Yes. How did you know?'

'I saw some scientists from there on the fourth floor. They were working together on some kinda experiment. You ever hear of Kodachi Kuno?'

Emma got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. 'Yes. She was considered for membership under the old plan. She was denied because of her family history of insanity. Nabiki also provided some information on her.'

'Well, you wouldn't believe what I just saw. They were using her for an experiment.'

Frost went even paler than normal. 'Hydra… They started the weapon X project, with her as the subject.'

Over the link, Emma could tell that Ranma was smirking. 'No. She ain't a mutant.'

The White Queen breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank god.'

'They did something worse.'

Emma's blood pressure shot right up again. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, they took out her bones, gave her hollow addymantium ones. They gave her namo-snot healing; her fingers turn into long, addymantium knives. They made her stronger, faster, and stuck another mind in her, so she's half psychotic martial artist, half evil soldier.'

Emma almost fainted on the spot. 'Shit.'

'Hey, at least she might be fun to fight.'

Emma remembered something. 'I can feel that you're fighting. Is it her?' She asked with trepidation. With a home field advantage, the new and improved Kodachi would be unstoppable. And knowing the ego of the pig-tailed martial artist, she wouldn't even consider running away.

'Nah, just some rats.'

'Rats?'

'You don't wanna know.' Ranma said with finality.

At this point, she was inclined to agree. Less news meant less bad news. 'Where are you now?'

'Just coming out of the air vents. Should just be a moment or two. You found the prisoners yet?'

'Shampoo thinks that Bishop is on level three. She's on route now.'

'Once I pop out of these vents, I'll be there too. Tell Shamps to keep a lode out for me.'

'Lode?'

'Like, in her head? Her telepathy?'

'Lobe. And yes, I shall.'

* * *

I felt Emma's touch leave, and got back to more immediate matters than missing mutants and my crummy vocabulary. The CyRats (well, what else would you call cyborg rats?) were persistent as hell, and seemed intent on having martial artist for dinner. They were biting my feet as I crawled through the vents, with my kicks having little to no effect.

People are always saying that rats are stupid, but I was being the victim of their intelligence. When they came at me from in front I could chi-blast them. Having all the flesh burned off their metal bones was something that even they couldn't recover from, but apart from my Moko Takabisha, nothing I could do worked. And while I'm handsome, beautiful, smart, and the best martial artist in the world, even I couldn't shoot energy blasts out of my feet (though I had plans to train to change that).

I saw a glimmer of light up ahead, and made for it as fast as I could. The CyRats stopped for a moment, surprised by the sudden thrashing I was doing. By the time they got their courage up again, I was at an exit grate. With no time for subtlety, I punched the grate with all my force, ripping it like toilet paper and sending it flying across the hall.

I popped out of the accursed vents, and turned around. It could have just been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw fear in the eyes of those rats. Animals know when they've looking at the next thing up on the food chain. And right now, they were quaking in their little metal boots. I smirked the smirk that had driven Ryoga mad with rage, the smirk that had struck fear into the hearts of property owners all over Nerima. The Saotome Smirk ™.

I raised my hand, pointing palm first at the vent. The rats backed up a little. "Moko…" A light illuminated my hand. "Taka…" A golden ball the size of a basketball appeared in my outstretched hand. Sure, that was far bigger than normal, but the little fuckers had really been chewing at me. It was like learning the Neko-Ken all over again. "BISHA!" The basketball sized chi blast fired straight into the vent. There was a flash, and the scent of roasting meat. Smoke billowed out. "Opps. Too much."

When the smoke had cleared, I was rewarded with the charred metal skeletons of a dozen rats. I grabbed one with slightly more meat on it than the rest, and stuck it in my pocket. After all, I couldn't have anyone thinking that it was NORMAL rats that were giving me so much trouble. Like chewing holes in my feet. I looked down, and snorted with disgust. There were bloodstains on the floor where I'd hopped out of the vent. Stupid rats.

I took a look around the corridor that I'd emerged into. There was no one in sight, just like before. I hazarded a guess that everyone was busy taking a look at Kodachi, or Lady Deathstrike as they were calling her now.

Kodachi and I had never got along. Of all of my fiancées, of all the women who were interested in me, I came the closest to hating her. I tried my hardest not to hate any of them- who could blame a woman for falling in love with me, after all? But her, I couldn't stand the sight of. Shampoo, she'd drug me occasionally, sure. But being drugged to hug her was totally forgivable. Ukyo, she'd plot every once in a while. But she always tried her hardest not to get anyone hurt. Kodachi, now she didn't bother with the nice things like that. She'd paralyse me with drugs, while claiming that we loved each other. She'd blackmail me with photos of things that never happened. And that was just my guy side.

My cursed form, she'd go psycho at. She would genuinely try to kill me. The only time she wouldn't attack me on sight was when I was with her brother, which was a cruelty all of its own, and she knew it. Akane found out the hard way, and I know I'll regret that I couldn't save her 'till the day I die. I think if I'd failed to save her from Saffron, I'd feel better about it. At least Saffron only tried to kill her.

I shook off all the deep thoughts. I had a mutant to rescue, and he wasn't going to get any more free if I just stood around looking at the blood on my feet. I picked a direction at random, and jogged off.

* * *

In the same vent that had just been a battleground, something moved. Stealthily, seeming like nothing more than a trick of the light, a small fury shape crept out of the hole in the wall. It gracefully landed on the floor, not making a single noise even though it had fallen over a metre.

It made its way to the bloody footprints left behind, sniffing carefully. The creature was the same size as a single one of the red marks, yet it showed no indication of caring. It sniffed the blood like a dog might, though it was far smarter than any mere dog.

The quiet animal looked up, and stalked in the direction that the blood went. It now had the scent of its prey; nothing would stop it from finding the intruder. A casual observer might have noticed its tail undulating slowly in the air. But no one was around to watch. No one was foolish to go down to this level without notifying the guardian. Except this new, bleeding intruder, and it was going to learn the price of crossing Catseye.

* * *

Now, I've said it before, and most people who know me will agree- I have no feminine modesty. Why should I? I'm a guy, even if my curse happens to be locked. So I don't care particularly about exposing my chest, usually. Now, if I was in the middle of the street I wouldn't go topless, 'cause everyone would notice, and I'd stick out like a sore thumb. And I wouldn't go topless for my friends at school, (no matter how often they'd ask) because having other guys lusting over me is just gross. So if no one was around, I wouldn't care if I was wearing a shirt or not. Unless, say, it was cold. Or I was running.

Running topless is not a lot of fun, trust me. My… attributes… have a habit of bouncing, and bouncing painfully. So even though I was all alone in these corridors, I would have swapped my favourite Dragon Ball manga for a shirt. Or even a bra. Hell, a scarf I could have wrapped around my chest would have been perfect. But no, I was reduced to having a pair of pants. Pants picked out for their ability to help me in battle- tight but not restrictive. So my options were be shirtless, or rip off a leg and tie it around my chest. My fear of Ucchan's wrath at loosing her shirt AND destroying her pants stopped me. What is it with (real) females and clothes?

I slowed down, and came to a halt. Not because running hurt, but because I might miss a detail or two while running, a vital detail that would lead us to the captured mutants. It was vitally important that we find them, and just because there was the side effect of my chest feeling better, it was ONLY to improve my concentration that I stopped. Really.

A noise from behind me caught my attention. I whirled around to face it, my hands moving into a defensive position, and my feet sliding just far enough to give me the necessary foundation to launch attacks from. After a moment to see what the source of the noise was, I grinned and lowered my guard. It was my blue haired wife.

"Shampoo! Any luck?" I had to ask, even though I didn't see anyone with her.

She favoured me with a sultry smile. "Yes, I just found a topless redhead." I groaned. It was bad enough having perverts like Hirosuke and Daisuke as friends at school, but both my wife AND my fiancée were way more perverted than them.

"I meant about the mutant. Did you find him yet?"

"No, I haven't seen anyone on this floor but you. You find anything?" She asked, still leering at me.

I just rolled my eyes. "No, just a couple of rats and Kodachi."

She stiffened. Shampoo hated Kodachi with a passion that was almost holy. I always had been of the opinion that Shampoo saw Kodachi as giving her a bad reputation. They both made death threats, but Shampoo made them to sound tough, and scare off weaklings. Kodachi did it because she meant it. And they both drugged, but the Amazon did it for love, while the gymnast did it for lust. They looked to bystanders like they had the same personality, and Shamps never forgave the Black Rose for that.

"Why she here?" Her English suddenly reverted to the same quality as her Japanese. She was too angry to pay attention. On the plus side, she was too busy being pissed to be drooling over me.

"She's the guinea pig in an experiment. Tell ya the rest later."

She clenched her teeth and nodded. "I no sense anyone here. Maybe mutant not here?"

I bit my lip in thought. "Maybe. But when I went to the fourth floor, Emma couldn't sense me. What if the prisoner's cell is like that? Telepathic shielding?"

Shampoo's face lit up. "Give me a moment." She put her fingers on her temples, and frowned cutely. I stood there watching as she stared off into blank space.

A minute or two later, Shampoo lowered her hands, and her eyes re-focused. "Emma says that there is a shielded area on this floor. Let's look there."

"Gotcha. Lets get going." I followed my Amazon wife down the corridors.

* * *

Meanwhile, forgotten, a lone okonomiyaki chef sat on the floor. Her combat spatula lay next to her. She was 'guarding' the exit. Of course, there was almost no one around to guard it from, so she was reduced to reading the magazines she brought with her. It could be said that no one in their right mind would bring reading material into a hostile military base, but then again few people thought Ukyo was in her right mind. For some, this was because of her okonomiyaki obsession. Others considered her semi nuts because of her obsession with Ranma, a ten-year hunt to kill him, then changing her mind because he called her cute. A select few in the know considered her loony because of her Sailor Mercury obsession.

Unlike most would guess, while the chef might have been a little concerning to a psychologist, she had a perfectly rational reason for bringing magazines with her. With Ranma around, everything became weird. A trip to a shrine could result in having to deal with an insulted horse; a childhood battle would return to haunt years later wearing a pig mask; a canoe test could end up as three girls and a aquatransexual left amongst twenty virus infected lusty boys on a Hawaiian island that had no business being where it was. Weird shit happened if Ranma was within twenty kilometres.

So, Ukyo had figured before leaving the hotel, if having time to read the latest issue of her favourite magazine in a place that should be filled with armed soldiers was the most unlikely thing to happen, she should plan as if it was a certainty. So as a result of this unusual- but correct- logic, she was reading the latest issue of Okonomiyaki Monthly while sipping on a glass of coke- with ice.

Hidden Weapons technique was a godsend.

* * *

The corridors were finally starting to show some change from the ones everywhere else. That was a major relief, as I'd feared that we were as lost as a certain martial artist with a pig curse. There were a lot more alarms all over the walls, probably incase of a jailbreak. I pointed this out to Shampoo, who nodded.

Barely a minute after the alarms got more common, we came to a door. Unlike every other in the place, this one didn't seem to be made out of metal. It was smooth, and reminded me of a flowerpot. Ceramic.

I shuffled nervously. "I guess this is the place then, huh?"

Shampoo nodded. "Yes." She reached forward, index finger out stretched. "Bakusai Tenketsu!"

The Bakusai Tenketsu, otherwise knows as the breaking point, is a Chinese Amazon technique. To my shame, it is one of the few techniques I've seen constantly yet do not know how to do. I understand it, in principle. Focus chi into the end of a finger, and release it into an inanimate object. To the untrained eye, it looks like it creates an explosion, while the truth is more complicated. It causes the entire object to fall apart- with the same intensity that it holds itself together. The trick lies in getting the chi right- it has to be totally chaotic. Organic things have enough chi in them that the breaking point is useless.

To a beginning level fighter, the main use of the technique is the enhanced durability it brings. The skin get so beaten that the user's damage resistance goes up ridiculously. To advanced fighters, it gains more uses- smoke screen, pits, timed explosions in the battlefield, mines (not mining for gold, mines that go 'BOOM' and kill people), avalanches, and general day-to-day uses.

Day to day uses can include destroying tough doors.

I watched with interest as the sturdy looking door ripped itself apart, showering us and the corridor with shrapnel. I used my speedy hands to catch all the debris heading for me, while Shampoo just let them bounce off her. That was a really useful side effect.

When the rubble cleared, we were treated to the amusing sight of an empty cell, and a dusty man stuck to the ceiling. The way he was positioned, with his arms pushing against one wall and his feet pushing against the wall opposite, showed quite clearly that he had been planning to fall on whoever came into his cell next. As escape plans go, I gave it a 6/10. Smarter than playing sick, but nowhere near as clever as sticking to the inside of the door, just below the peephole.

I couldn't resist. "Hey, how's it hanging?" I was rewarded with dirty looks from both the inmate and the Amazon. "Um. You're Bishop, right?" God, I hoped I was right. If there were heaps of prisoners to rescue, this would be ridiculously time consuming.

The man still plastered to the ceiling coughed a lungful of dust. "Yeah." He may have been a little surprised at having his cell blown open by a pair of hot babes.

"Are you planning on getting down any time soon? 'Cause this jail break will go a lot harder if you stay there." At my prompting he let go of the celing and fell down, managing to land on his feet, though the shock of impact looked like it hurt him. He turned around, and faced us.

"So, who are you?" Well, that was subtle. And rude. I liked him. Not THAT way, though a lot of girls would. He was darker than a normal American, almost as black as Happosai's heart. He was muscly, far bulkier than I ever was- that meant that in a fight, he'd go with strength over speed. His hair was long, black, and curly. He looked about 20, and he had the beginnings of a beard. His most distinctive feature was a large M tattooed over his right eye. It, like his left one, was focused on my chest.

"Well, we're the…" I started, only to be cut off by Shampoo.

"She's taken." She stepped in front of me, shielding me from Bishop. I was rather surprised by this. Shampoo looked jealous. Territorial. "WE are the Hellions. I'm Shampoo, and the redhead's Ranma. We heard that you needed help." Hellions? First I'd heard of that name. I let it lie, since it might have been mentioned when I wasn't listening.

"Right. You came into a guarded military base, risking life and limb, because you felt like helping someone?" Man, he was suspicious as hell.

"Pretty much." Shampoo, without looking, elbowed me in the gut for that. I decided to shut up and let her do the talking.

"There are many reasons, but let's wait until we get out of here to tell them." Shamps said. I was really impressed at how good her English had gotten so quickly. "Didn't you have a friend here who needed rescuing too?"

The black guy looked relieved for a split second, before going back to suspicious. "Yeah. Goratschin. My old drinking buddy. He tell you to find me?"

Shampoo shook her head. "No, but when we heard what they're doing to him, we had to include him in the jailbreak." She knew slang as well. I was beginning to suspect that she'd kept more of those English lessons that she gave us than she was telling. Eh, Anything Goes. I live by it; I couldn't fault her for doing the same.

Bishop frowned sadly. "It was supposed to be ME getting HIM out. But then a guard walked by while I was untying his restraints, and I got caught." He brightened up. "But I do know where he is, if they haven't moved him. He's on the second floor."

I grinned. "You know, right now, everyone with a gun is on the fourth floor. Apart from us, the only people on the floors above this one are janitors, secretaries, and a repair guy. I bet there's no one stoping us from just breaking that cell open, and walking out with him…"

Bishop grinned wolfishly in reply. "I like that idea. Follow me." He picked a direction and started jogging off. Well, I guess you could call it jogging, though to me it was a fast walk. Damn non martial artists.

It was then that I realized that I still had no shirt. "Pervert." I growled, thinking of how he'd been staring at my chest. Shampoo nodded sagely next to me, then we both followed Bishop.

* * *

At that point, the White Queen was smiling. After keeping that meeting under telepathic surveillance, and having led Shampoo and Ranma to the shielded area, the task was almost done. Just one more stray to pick up, and then back home in time for dinner. And the most surprising part was that after over an hour in the base, there was only a door, a vent, and some rats as casualties. Emma had halfway expected that by now, half the base would be levelled and the alarm would be ringing. Perhaps the foreign martial artists COULD keep collateral damage to a minimum.

And perhaps best of all, she'd managed to limit her interference to but a single message to Shampoo, telling her to say 'Hellions" instead of 'Hellfire Club', which she would have to remember to explain in full to the three girls later.

Emma wiped the blood off her forehead, and hoped she looked as presentable as normal. "You can show yourself now, LaBeau."

A rustling could be heard from the bushes, and then a man emerged from them. His clothing was distinctive- he wore a black mask that covered his ears and the bulk of his hair, except for the top of his head. The rest of his outfit was more normal- a faded trench coat covered the rest of his dark clothes. He sported a goatee and small beard on the underside of his chin. One could easily mistake him for a bum or a biker, but his black eyes with burning red pupils and the deck of cards that he nursed in his hands were clues that he was no ordinary man. He was Remy LaBeau, Gambit.

"Chérie. How you know Remy's name, huh?" The Cajun asked. His deceptively mild tone of voice masked the subtle movements of his hands, as one went to his quarterstaff, and the other grabbed a card.

Emma smirked. She loved this sort of thing. "I was waiting for you to come, Gambit, though I was suspecting that Magneto would send Sabertooth. We're here for the same reason, I take it?"

Gambit's eyes narrowed. "Gambit's here for de 'speriment. He wants to find out wa' de Black Glove is doing."

Emma laughed. "Then we have different reasons for being here. I thought Magneto would have been interested in expanding his acolytes."

"'Den there is a mutant here, mon ami. Gambit wondered."

"And the mutant is with me now. You can go home now, Remy."

LaBeau frowned. "Gambit doesn't like taking orders, femme. He has a job to do."

A glint appeared on the face of the White Queen, but the rest of her expression remained unchanged. "You were late. One of my team has already witnessed the experiment, and learned all there is to know." Emma smirked slightly. "And as strong as you are, I doubt even you could withstand what they created."

"Well, de boss, he don't like failures. So mebey you tell Remy what he wants to know, and we all be happy, eh?"

Emma sat up straighter. "I have a better idea. You tell Magneto to meet me in Bayville, in two weeks. At the roof of the school, midnight. He's welcome to bring all of his acolytes, if he wants. There, I'll trade him the information he wants, and some extra."

Gambit glowered at the white clad woman. "And why do you think that he go there, chérie? He have many enemies in Bayville."

Emma's eyes locked onto the Cajun's, and spoke directly into his mind. 'Tell him that the White Queen of the Hellfire Club assures his safety, and promises that it will be worth his while.'

* * *

The three of us came to a stop by an elevator. Bishop had stayed in the front, mostly because I could make sure he wasn't looking at my chest, and Shampoo had stayed in the middle, for the same reason. She was acting like she was jealous or something.

The black man looked at the open elevator. "We go up this elevator, turn left, and walk to the first door we see. That's where they've got Ivan."

I looked over Shampoo's shoulder at the elevator. "That'll be a tight fit."

Shampoo looked like she was thinking the same thing. "We should split up. Ranma, you go first. Then Bishop and I will go."

I looked at Shamps. "No way. This is way more dangerous than the next floor up. Kodachi might be on the prowl. You two go first."

Bishop put in his two cents. "Shampoo, why don't you go, and I'll go with Ranma."

I shook my head. "Uh uh. I'm a way better fighter than you. You first."

It looked like the argument was going to go on for ages, so I did what I do best- the unexpected. I shoved the Amazon into the elevator next to Bishop, hitting the 'next floor' button and getting out. I watched the doors close on their surprised faces.

* * *

In the elevator, Bishop and Shampoo stared at each other. Shampoo was the first to speak. "She's mine."

Bishop narrowed his eyes. "She sure seemed to like me."

"She's a lesbian."

"She didn't mind showing me her… features."

"We're already together."

"We'll see about that."

* * *

Ukyo closed her magazine. The article about the new way of preparing the seaweed for Okonomiyaki was really interesting- she made a mental note to try it out. She folded the magazine in half, and drained the last of her coke.

Relaxed and off guard, she never noticed the soldier walking up behind her. She was completely unaware that she was being watched as she put the magazine into her cleavage using Hidden Weapons technique.

Her first and only warning was when she felt a slight tickling on the back of her head. She swiped her hand back to scratch it. She had a split second to feel the cold metal barrel of a gun, before the soldier pulled the trigger.

Out side the room, a secretary jumped at the noise of the gunshot. Inside, the soldier stood impassively over the body of the chef, watching her brain matter slowly drip off the wall.

* * *

I waited outside the elevator. I never was the most patient of people, and waiting in front of an old elevator in the middle of an unreasonably empty military base was far from exciting. There was nothing happening, nothing at all.

'Pit. Pit. Pit.'

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. I mentally cursed myself. Saying that nothing was happening was like saying 'Oh wow, I haven't been splashed all day today.' It was just asking for bad stuff to happen.

I focused on the noise. It was lighter than a person. Too light to be a guard, or Kodachi. Too light to be a CyRat. I listened to the timing, and realized that whatever it was had four legs. Mutant? Another experiment? I wasn't sure.

I slipped into a defensive position, and spread the fingers on my right hand. It started glowing gold. Concentrating a little more, the glow turned into a luminous tennis ball sized sphere of energy. Instead of launching it, I held it. It was unpleasant, and difficult, but experience had shown me that when it comes to inhuman enemies, you should expect the worst.

The sound was getting closer, and I could tell it was just around the corner. I mentally prepared myself, imagining what it could be. A hideous monster, with addymantum bones? A robot? Something like the monsters from Resident Evil? My mind crawled with possibilities.

It rounded a corner, and I realized that all my thoughts were nothing compared to the truth. It had huge fangs, a mouth full of them, dripping saliva and malice. The beady eyes held a murderous rage, and the ears looked like they could slice a limb off if they touched someone. The tail writhed like a thing alive, and must have been as thick as Bishop's leg. Each of it's four, sinister legs was lined with massive claws, designed for ripping the flesh of its prey. The beast itself was almost as tall as I was, and I knew it was a predator. I knew I had no chance at all.

The energy ball in my hands faded away to nothing, and I pressed myself flat against the wall, shivering uncontrollably. As I cringed before the horrific visage, it gave it's sinister battle cry, the cry that carried the promise of death.

"Meow."

* * *

Author's Rant: Mwhuhahahahaaahaha! I'm so evil! And I have one hell of a cliffhanger addiction. I blame it on the webcommic Dominic Deegan.

To those of you who wanted to know what Ukyo's power was, and heard my promise to reveal it this chapter- I lied!

Important note: I love X-men: Evolution. I loved what I saw of the original TV series. I loved the movies. I love what few comics I can get my hands on. But that isn't a lot- less than a dozen. In my country it is absolutely fricken impossible to lay your hands on a comic that isn't the Simpsons. So, I go by what I remember, what few I have, and make extensive use of the internet.

Another note: Every mutant I've mentioned was in the comic. The mutant I patterned Ranma after, the one I used for Ukyo, the one for Shampoo are all from the comics. Their involvement varies from a mere cameo, to being a classic icon. Other characters, Bishop, The White Queen, Gateway, Catseye, they all come from the comics.

In the comics, Bishop was a soldier from the future who came back in time; Emma Frost was the enemy for a while, eventually becoming good and working for the X-men. Gateway was an aboriginal Australian who meditated a lot and never spoke. Catseye was one of Emma's Hellions.

The mutant that Bishop was trying to rescue ISNT from X-men, but isn't original either. He belongs to another series, a German one, which also had mutants in it. Research it if you dare.


	7. Chapter 6: Riposte

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks **J. St.C. Patrick, **who uses some kind of dark magic to wring coherency out of my spelling. Oh, thanks to all the guys at fukufics for all their input, ideas and inspiration.

* * *

There once was a girl born. Not an uncommon event, in the scheme of things, but this girl was different. When she was born, her parents were surprised to discover that she had short auburn fur on her forehead. This, while a surprise, was far from unheard of, so the two proud parents paid it no mind. They named their daughter Rahne Sinclair, and were proud in that doting way that all parents are. Eventually, her forehead fur fell out, and all forgot it had ever existed by the time she reached her second birthday.

When Rahne turned the mighty age of six, her parents decided to emigrate. Scotland, while a fine place to live, was lacking in opportunities for the advanced education that Mr & Mrs Sinclair wanted for their daughter. The family packed their bags and went to America.

This proved to be a mistake. America had slightly better schools, and better-funded facilities, that much was true. What they hadn't been informed about was the high crime rate, and the tendency to abuse people with minor differences that seemed ingrained into the American mindset. Rahne quickly found herself an outsider, laughed at for her strange accent. Had she been older, this would have been much less of a problem, but smaller children can be even more spiteful than the older ones.

Misery loves company, they say, and Rahne found that to be the truth. She eventually made friends with a girl named Sharon Smith, and the two were instant rivals. Not the kind that two people named Evan Daniels and Pietro Maximoff would grow up to be, but a competitive friendship, with each girl egging the other on to do better. The two were as different as could be: Rahne was a loyal, fearless girl. An unashamed tomboy, she got into fights with ease, and seldom lost. She looked almost feral, and was frequently berated by her parents for being scruffy. Sharon, on the other hand, was the epitome of beauty and grace. She always paid attention to her appearance, a borderline obsessive attention. She took particular pride in her natural purple hair, and was known to brush it at least twice a day, sometimes up to seven or more times on a windy day. While her best friend was into sports, she was a gymnast, and an accomplished one.

When Rahne hit 14, she moved to an exclusive school. Sharon, happy for her friend but sad that she was gone, had to stay behind.

The week after Rahne left, Sharon found her self lost, and in need of a friend. She had startled her friends at school one day with a pair of cats-eye contact lenses. Her friends, as she and Rahne had stopped being social outcasts years ago, were impressed with this bit of teenage rebellion.

What Sharon had kept secret from her friends was that she was not wearing contact lenses. Her eyes had changed without her noticing. The morning after she made this discovery, she awoke to find that she was now the possessor of a tail. It dropped to the floor, and was covered in the same deep purple that colored her hair.

Her parents were out of town that day, so she had no one to ask about this strange transformation. She took the day off school and stayed at home, panicking about what was happening to her.

Her fears were justified; the next morning, she awoke with a pair of purple cat's ears in place of her human ones. When she had come down stairs to phone the day off school, she was surprised to find her parents had come back early. Her parents reacted to her new look with confusion at first, thinking it was some kind of joke. When they realized that she wasn't playing a joke on them, their whole demeanor changed. Her parents yelled. First at her, for being a freak, then at each other, as charges of bestiality sprang back and forth. Sharon had retreated to her room.

Her parents had made a lot of phone calls that night, and when the next morning came it was marked by the appearance of a dark van in front of her house. Her parents explained it to her- these were people who might be able to cure her of being a freak. She gladly accepted, and went with the men in suits.

Almost as soon as the doors closed, the men had started beating her. Before she could fight back she was pinned, totally helpless. As she had lay there writhing and squirming, one of the men had slipped a collar onto her neck. And part of her mind switched off.

This marked the beginning of a new chapter in Sharon's life. She was now totally obedient to whatever government agency owned her. They started calling her Catseye, and trained her in her 'mutation' as they called it.

The next year was mostly a blur for Catseye. As she learned to shift from cat girl to girl or cat, she was passed around from one shady group to another, from Shield, to Trask's sentinel project, then finally to the Black Hand. Her control over her mutation was complete by the time she reached the Black Hand- she could turn into a purple house cat sized cat, or one the size of a panther. The collar was redesigned to resize according to her form. By now the whole world knew of mutants, so she was of no particular importance. She mostly found herself as security.

And on one day, she was patrolling in her house-cat form, as normal, when she smelt the odor of burning rats, and decided to investigate. The scent trail led to bloody footprints, which she was forced to follow. The source of these footprints was an odor she had never smelled before, so she knew that it was an intruder. When the intruder started moving faster than her, she switched to her panther form. The intruder met another intruder, the scents told her, and then freed the prisoner. She followed the three trails to an elevator, where the original intruder was waiting for her.

People had been afraid of Catseye's panther form, but none took it to the extremes that the intruder did. She went from an aggressive posture to pressed up against the wall, hyperventilating and whimpering. Sharon's hearing picked up the single word 'Cat'. Wondering if the redheaded intruder was afraid of cats, she decided to test out a theory. She meowed, wondering if there would be any effect from it. And was shocked with the result.

* * *

Several years previously, a man named Genma Saotome had been on a brief training trip. His son had just celebrated his third birthday party, and was showing talent in the martial arts. At a mere six months after learning to walk, Genma had been treated to the sight of his son Ranma trying to mimic his kata. Not with much skill, but it was an amazing performance for a toddler. His beautiful wife Nokoda had witnessed this too, and agreed that Ranma should be taught Anything-Goes as soon as was sensible.

Genma had gone on a training trip, not to better his own skills, but to find resources to teach his heir. A man named Kumon, owner of his own Dojo, had swapped him a manual to teach advanced martial arts to small children. It was a dangerous manual, and many of the methods detailed within could kill if taught poorly. It had cost him dearly, both financially and emotionally. He had taught Kumon his most dangerous techniques. The pride and the shame of the Saotome martial arts- the Yamasen-ken. A brutal, murderous set of techniques, Genma had been ashamed to invent them. They had come in use on occasion, but he had never used them without fear of the consequences. And now, he had taught them to a man as payment. The balding martial artist was horrified at the consequences. He would have to develop a counter to his dreadful Yamasen-ken, to use if Kumon became drunk on power. It would be his duty to make sure his creation would never hurt the innocent.

But he had the training manual, and he browsed through it. There was much information in it, though it could also be a manual for child abuse. The manual stated two things at the beginning, two points that had to be followed faithfully. The training had to be started as soon as possible. And every single step had to be followed to the letter. Not stopped when the pupil seemed to be suffering, but only right before their body would fail them.

Genma realized that this would change his plans. His wife couldn't come along- she was great of heart, and would stop him from following the manual. And he would have to leave as soon as possible, within the month or none of it would work. Especially the Neko-ken.

The Neko-ken made Genma shudder. When Ranma was ten, he would have to throw him into a pit of starving cats wrapped in fish sausage! He didn't like that at all. He didn't want to do anything to Ranma that he wouldn't do to himself, but the manual said that ten was the upper limit- it was imperative that it happened before puberty.

First, the next six years would be spent in training and preparing. Special attention would be put into the boy's adaptability and healing. Then, when the time came to start the training, Genma would use a combination of pressure points to increase Ranma's chi vulnerability. When the Neko-ken training started, he would pretend to abandon Ranma to the pit, while actually hiding in it with him. When Ranma could take no more of the cats, his father would knock him out from behind and carry him out of the pit to patch up his wounds.

After several repetitions, the angry feline chi would build up to a peak within Ranma. Chances were that he would act and think like a cat, for a while. When he reverted to his human mind, the training would be complete. Deep within Ranma, a furnace of Cat chi would burn, forever replenishing itself. This would bleed over into Ranma constantly, giving him a chi reserve that, by the time he reached his late teens, would surpass that of his father's. It would make him faster and stronger than anyone else his age, and he would improve faster than anyone else.

And finally, it would give Ranma a gift that no one else could ever match. Everyone had a weakness, that much was unavoidable. But his greatest weakness would forever be a strength that was as unstoppable as a forest fire, or a mountain's eruption. A feline phobia that might be used against him one day. Any opponent that ever tried that would regret it for however long (or short) the might live.

* * *

Catseye, currently a large purple panther, watched as the redheaded intruder slumped to the ground. This would not be out of the ordinary, except for the fact that she had only meowed at her. The thought briefly crossed her mind that the stranger was faking, or had a heart attack. She crept forward, trying to see what was happening. And then the girl looked up at Catseye.

Her eyes were feral, the pupils elongated like a cat's. There was nothing human in that look. Nothing but a raw, animal fury. Catseye stopped dead in her tracks, and tensed. Her nose twitched as the scent from the intruder started smelling half cat. Briefly, the purple cat mutant wondered if the redhead had the same mutation she did.

The intruder sprung to her feet- and hands. She was now on all fours, her legs unbent. It looked painful, but the redhead didn't seem to be suffering from it. She stood still for a moment, and then leapt at the purple mutant.

* * *

Shampoo stepped out of the elevator, closely followed by Bishop. They made a total contrast- one a slim girl in a short dress, the other a small mountain of rippling muscle in an orange jumpsuit. The only outward similarity about them was the identical look of anger, jealously, and distrust on their faces.

Shampoo was the first to speak. "Which way?"

"Let's wait for Red. Unless you want to leave her behind." His tone was civil, barely.

Shampoo gritted her teeth. "She's far more powerful than either of us, Brian."

Bishop glared in response. "It's Bishop. Just Bishop. Brian was just an alias."

"Bishop, then. Ranma is, probably, the most dangerous person you will ever meet. Even before she became a mutant, she could do things that most mutants couldn't match." Shampoo gloated with pride in her wife.

The black man raised an eyebrow. "Beauty pageants don't count."

Shampoo's eyebrow twitched. "She could, when I first met her, jump over a two story house from a standing position. She could punch down walls with ease. She could dodge punches that most people couldn't even see."

"Impressive." His voice clearly said he didn't believe her.

The blue haired Amazon glared. "As of two months ago, she could throw energy blasts, create tornados, lift a three ton rock with ease, and throw over a hundred punches in a second.'

"Woah." This time he did sound impressed. A statement like that was too easy to prove or disprove for Shampoo to gain anything by lying, and he knew that.

Sensing blood, Shampoo went in for the kill. "I've seen her beat a flying minotaur with octopus tentacles, a man who could fly and create energy blasts with ease, and just over a month ago she killed a phoenix mutant. He could fly, was immune to fire and could throw it around, regenerated limbs in a moment, and their fight destroyed a mountain. That was the second time one of her fights did that, by the way."

"…" Was all Bishop could say to that.

"And all that was before her powers activated. Trust me, she's almost invincible."

He laughed sarcastically. "Only almost?"

Shampoo looked a little sheepish. "She has this small problem with cats."

"Allergies?"

"Not quite." Shampoo started blushing furiously. "Its like a phobia. Only, when the fear gets too great, she gets a little… weird."

"Weird like fainting?"

* * *

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Black Hand military facility, a lone guard was speaking into a walkie-talkie, reporting in.

"This is Private Evans reporting in, sir."

"Private! Your orders were to remain radio silent, soldier! What the hell are you doing?"

"Sir, I found an intruder. A young girl."

There was a pause. "Then the Intel division was right for once. What can you tell me about the intruder?"

"Asian, late teens, early twenties. Dark hair, carries what appears to be a 1.3 meter metal dustpan."

There was a longer pause. "Dustpan?" The voice sounded pained.

"Yes sir, a dustpan. The edge looks sharpened."

"Don't waste time telling me about mutie floor fetishes, private! What was she doing!"

"Reading a magazine, sir, and drinking something. Sh…" His voice trailed off as the raido went silent. Not the static of a lost signal, but dead silent, as if he was holding a brick instead of military hardware. By reflex, he tried to examine what was wrong with it, and a shiver rolled down his back as the radio refused to move a millimeter from where he had held it by his ear. Slowly, he moved his head to look at the defective piece of military hardware.

The reason that the radio wasn't working was immediately clear. Three metal spears were penetrating straight through it, carrying on all the way to the opposite wall. Private Evans let his eyes trail from the ends embedded in the wall, along to the radio itself, along the shafts all the way to their source.

Said source being the young girl he had just killed. Oh, there were differences, to be sure. She was now brilliant chrome, skin, eyes and hair. Even the blood and brains that had sprayed all over the carpet and wall were now the same reflective metal. And she was standing up, looking pissed.

It wasn't the fact that the girl now looked like a metal statue wearing real clothes that scared the soldier. Nor was it the fact that three of her fingers had extended several meters, and were sticking through his only way of communicating with the rest of his unit. It wasn't even the fact that he thought he had killed her, all though all these things surely contributed to his fear.

No, what was scaring Private Evans at that particular moment was the fact that the metal woman still had the large hole in her head that he had put there. It could have been a stubbed toe for all the care that this metallic woman gave it, even though it accounted for one of her eyes, and the entire back of her skull.

If Evans had been more attentive, and less concerned with keeping his pants dry, he might have noticed all the chrome bloodstains and bone fragments on the floor were moving, joining together. He might also have noticed the congealed fragments flow over the floor into the body of the young chef. He DID, however, notice when the missing portion of Ukyo's head regrew, and she became a normal highly polished steel statue.

As his military training finally kicked in, Evans raised his gun. He managed to get a short burst off before the fingers of her free hand extended through his gun, hitting with enough force to rip it out of his hands and sending it flying across the room. He fell to the floor, cowering.

The enraged okonomiyaki chef retracted all her fingers to the normal length, the radio falling to the ground. She slowly walked up to the terrified soldier. He stayed still as a rock, fear paralyzing him. Even when she opened her mouth, revealing sharp, jagged metal teeth, he couldn't move.

"Have you ANY idea how LONG it takes to make my skin go back to normal!" shrieked the enraged chef. "And having a hole blown through your head HURTS LIKE HELL! IN THE NAME OF LOVE, JUSTICE, AND SORE HEADS I, MERCURY, WILL PUNISH YOU!"

The soldier wet himself, imagining being impaled like his poor radio and gun. He was totally unprepared for Ukyo to grab the combat spatula from her back. "AND THIS IS NOT A DUSTPAN!"

The next ten minutes or so were spent with Ukyo beating Private Evans over the head. The fact that the first hit knocked him unconscious went unnoticed by the cute fiancée.

* * *

Catseye sprang sideways, the invisible claws of the redhead missing her by millimeters. She paled under her fur as she saw the deep gouges left where she had just been. Was this girl a mutant? She dodged another swipe, and lunged forward. She might not have invisible, foot long claws, but she was hardly defenseless!

She leapt onto the redhead, raking her claws across her side. The intruder gave a screech, and then launched herself at Catseye.

The purple panther ducked, and the redhead shot over her, into the doors of the elevator. Her velocity punched her straight through the closed doors, even though they were at least half a foot of metal. The lunge wasn't completely wasted though; her long claws had left eight gouges running straight down Catseye's back. Including a cut on her collar.

Catseye leapt after the redhead. Not out of any belief that she could win, not with those gaping wounds on her back. But the other girl was too fast; she would never be able to run away. Her only hope was to move in for the kill while the girl was stunned from ramming through reinforced titanium doors.

The redhead saw her coming, and rolled out of the way. Catseye noted with satisfaction that her opponent had moved far slower than before, a sure sign that the metal had slowed her down. Catseye slammed into the floor, and lunged forward. The elevator was tiny, and her opponent was backed into the corner. There was no escape.

The redhead tensed her muscles for a jump, and Catseye mentally crowed in victory. Her mental cheer was cut off as the redhead did the unexpected: the jumped UP. Through the ceiling. The purple panther boggled at the sight of a hole in the reinforced metal of the elevator, then realized something. The cables that hold up the elevator were located on the top of the elevator. She jumped out the hole into the elevator shaft.

Catseye saw the redhead climbing up the wall of the elevator shaft, and started following. The shaft would normally be too tough for her claws to penetrate, but the cuts left by the other girl were useable as clawholds.

Behind her, the elevator started to wobble.

* * *

"Weird like fainting?"

"NO!" snapped Shampoo, irritated at Bishop's casual assumption of a woman's weakness. Being an Amazon, Shampoo found it harder to believe in a male warrior than a female one, but the Amazons let males become warriors. Granted, they usually kept them from the higher ranks in the tribe, but that was on a case-by-case basis. Nine times out of ten, a male warrior was stupid, rash, a playboy or a bully. But having this male, this man who fought with guns instead of his body, dismiss HER Arien so casually- he was lucky that she didn't beat him to a bloody pulp and leave him in a closet.

A shriek of metal caught Shampoo's attention, and she turned around to face whatever new threat might appear. She, like Bishop, was totally unprepared for the sight that faced her. The elevator door had four slashes right through it, and even as she watched more appeared. There was nothing visible, no apparent reason for them to appear, and Shampoo knew instantly what caused them- the claws of the Neko-ken.

For a moment the Amazon was lost in fond memories, of being invited for a piggy-back ride, of the time when Ranma looked her in the eyes and said "If YOU'RE with me, Shampoo, I can beat anyone." That was the moment when she truly fell in love. Not the moment she met a well-endowed redhead who was stealing her food- that was just well disguised lust. Not the moment when a black haired man knocked her out with her own weapon- her attempt to marry him was just because of law. But that moment on the beach, when Ranma was risking everything on the outcome of one battle, when he looked her in the eye and trusted her to help him even though she had every reason not to- that was it. That was when she knew that she had found her soul mate.

Then reality asserted itself once more, and her eyes refocused on the battered redhead emerging from the door.

To call her scratched would have been an understatement. She had three gashes in her side that bled freely, and small cuts peppering her legs. Her head had a gash on it too; her hair was a different shade of red than normal, and Shampoo had only one guess as to what stained it: blood. The undersides of her feet were cut up as well. Shampoo had to gasp at how badly beaten her wife was.

Ranma meowed pitifully, and padded her way unsteadily towards Shampoo. A trail of blood followed her, but she seemed intent on reaching safety. The Amazon crouched low and held out her hand to the injured cat-girl. Ranma sniffed her hand, and rubbed herself against the side of her arm, before cuddling up to Shampoo and lying down.

'Emma!' Shampoo cast out telepathically. 'Ranma's hurt!"

'How?' Emma's reply was concise, but the concern in her voice was loud and clear.

'I don't know, she's gone into the Neko-ken. What ever got her, it must have been tough.' Shampoo took an appraising look at the redhead's side. 'I think it must have had claws too.'

'The Neko-ken… I thought you said she was invincible in it!'

'She is. I'm getting scared thinking of what could do this to her.' Shampoo replied honestly.

'Hold on… You have something alive coming up the tunnel towards you. I don't think I've ever felt anything like it before.'

"Bishop! There's something coming up that tunnel! Get ready!"

A scrabbling noise came from the elevator, and Shampoo stood up to greet it, pulling a pair of Bonbori out of her cleavage. In front of her, Bishop moved his fists raised into a boxing position. Ranma moved slightly behind Shampoo, hissing.

* * *

Emma Frost watched bemusedly as the Cajun left, cussing under his breath at being bossed around by such a "petite femme". It had been too long since she'd had the chance to amuse herself like that. Too much of her time recently had been spent searching for mutants and trying to grasp the reins of all her newly acquired businesses. Taking control of the world's economy while trying to find powerful mutants left very little time for fun. But with Sage and Gateway, as well as Psylocke, Ranma and Ukyo, she was going to have a lot more time on her hands, as well as a lot more entertainment, according to Shampoo's accounts of Nerima.

The White Queen groaned for letting herself get distracted, and went back to monitoring the situation. The first girl she checked was Ukyo. She groaned again.

'Ukyo.'

'Huh? Emma?'

'Yes. Would you care to explain just why you're bludgeoning a security guard over the head?'

'He SHOT me! It hurt like hell!'

'Oh my god! Are you hurt? How badly? I'll have Gateway pick you up immediately!'

'No thank you. It was just a bullet to the head.'

'WHAT?'

'Could you pick up the last half hour of my memories? That would be easier than explaining it.'

That comment drew a slight smile from the blonde. Ukyo trusted her to go through her memories, after just meeting her the day before. That kind of trust was rare, and Emma vowed to herself never to betray that.

'Well. That explains quite a lot. I had been wondering if your mutant power leaned towards ice and water.'

Emma could feel that Ukyo was grinning. 'I didn't mean Mercury as in the sailor scout, although she IS my hero. I meant as in Mercury the metal.'

'I never would have guessed. So- you can turn to metal, and reform into one piece when shattered.'

'A better way to put it would be to think of me as the evil terminator from Terminator 2. I can't change colors, but different shapes is easy for me.'

'Were you wearing makeup when we met, and in the hotel?'

'Huh? Makeup? Yeah, a little… Oh, you mean how I looked normal? I can make myself back into flesh, but it takes about an hour of meditating.'

Wait. Something was wrong. She was forgetting something. Emma went back over the memories she had just gotten. Ukyo beating an unconscious man with an oversized spatula, Ukyo ranting, Ukyo knocking a gun out of the soldier's hand, Ukyo destroying a radio…

The radio! The soldier had been using it to talk to someone. He described Ukyo to someone, a superior officer. But why hadn't she felt the soldier coming? A telepath of Emma's caliber should have been able to pick up his thoughts with ease. How in the hell had she missed him?

'Ukyo.'

'Yes?'

'One floor below you is Shampoo and Bishop.'

'They rescued him!'

'Indeed. Do you think you can carry that soldier down to them? I need to scan him, but he's too far away. If you get him to Shampoo, I can use her as a relay.'

'Yeah, I can lift him. No problem. But wouldn't it be easer to wait for Shampoo here?'

'I couldn't feel him coming. I still can't feel his presence. But he was on the radio to someone before you beat him up. I need to know if there are more of them out there, and how they're managing to shield themselves.'

'Good idea. I'm not sure how bullet proof Ranma and Shampoo are, and I'll bet that Bishop isn't.'

'You should hurry. First, take a left and keep going past six intersections…'

Emma gave her the rest of the instructions, all the while pondering just how Ukyo had meant that statement. Not sure how bullet proof? Was that sarcasm? Understatement? Truth? These martial artists were one thing to receive reports about, but to have them around, and see them in action? Scary.

The blonde withdrew from Ukyo, and started looking for Ranma. She had been with Shampoo when she'd called earlier, but was strangely missing from her side as of her last scan. As she started searching, she was interrupted by a panicky message from Shampoo.

'Emma! Ranma's hurt!"

'How?' Her heart leapt into her throat. Ranma… she liked that redhead. Sure, she was rude and arrogant. But she treated Emma like a person, like anyone else. Not as a benefactor, a powerful mutant or a billionaire. She knew Emma was all of these, yet treated her like a friend.

'I don't know, she's gone into the Neko-ken. What ever got her, it must have been tough… I think it must have had claws too.'

'The Neko-ken… I thought you said she was invincible in it!'

'She is. I'm getting scared thinking of what could do this to her.' Real fear came across with that message.

The White Queen quickly sent her mind out around Shampoo. Not out of any real hope, as she assumed that whatever did it was shielded like the soldier. Consequently, when she found something she was shocked. She was shocked again when she tried to get a feel of its mind. 'Hold on… You have something alive coming up the tunnel towards you. I don't think I've ever felt anything like it before.'

Emma concentrated more on what she'd felt from the tunnel. It really felt unusual. There was humanity in it, but it was submerged beneath a feral beast. At the same time there was a sense of duality, of wanting to kill and of wanting to be long gone. That made for four distinct signals from the same point. It was quite a headache for the telepath. And a riddle.

But if anything could be said about Emma Frost, other than her beauty, grace, and telepathic skill, it was that she never backed down. From anything. And that went double when people she cared about were in trouble.

* * *

Catseye finished pulling herself up the tunnel, and leapt through the shredded elevator door into the corridor. Her claws were very sore; only her mutant healing had stopped them from being ripped off. That same healing had also mostly taken care of the deep slashes in her back- they had stopped bleeding, and were less than half a centimeter deep.

The purple panther looked ahead, and saw its prey. The redhead was cowering behind a woman with blue hair, and the prisoner that she had been guarding stood with them. Catseye grinned a feral feline grin, and leapt.

The escaped prisoner moved forward to meet her, punching out wildly. She twisted in mid-air to dodge the blow, ramming into his face. He went down, and didn't come up again.

Catseye launched herself into the air again the instant her feet touched the ground. The blue haired woman swiped at her with one of her strange clubs, inflicting a glancing blow that deflected her leap, sending her flying into a wall. She dropped to the floor, and hissed. The redhead hissed back.

Cats have sensitive hearing, that's a known fact. Cat mutants have good hearing too. They can hear a heart beating, a mouse creeping along the concrete from ten meters. By all rights, even the most distracted of them should be able to sense that they're being snuck up on.

And to be fair, Catseye did sense something. She smelt a male more than thirty meters away. And she did feel a strange shift in the air. But considering the crosscurrents with the elevator and the hall, she had ignored them as nothing.

She was unable to ignore the metal fist that connected with her head.

As her consciousness started to fade, she heard a voice. "That's for hurting my fiancé, jackass!"

* * *

There are good ways to wake up, and bad ones. Good ones involve the smell of Kusami's breakfast, or the chirp of birds (that training trip me and Pop's went on left me with a love of camping). Bad ways to wake up involve being thrown out a window, a mallet to the head, or a certain gymnast with an obsession with roses and pigtailed martial artists. A wake up involving a beautiful girl lies somewhere between the two. On one hand, it's really nice. On the other hand, it often means I'm about to be the target of an attempt at murder. So my first response is usually to panic.

I opened my eyes, and was confronted with a pair of silver, naked breasts. Response: Panic. I yelled (not screamed, guys don't scream) and squirmed a lot. Next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor with a sore butt. And the sound of laughter.

"Maybe that'll teach you to go neko-ken on us," laughed my cute fiancée. She was naked, and doing her war memorial impersonation, and draped over her shoulder like a sack of rice was a soldier. She started walking off, and I jumped up to follow her. I had to wince. My side was killing me, and my head felt like bacon-butt had hit me with his umbrella. Not to mention that my feet and legs felt like the skin had been ripped off. I didn't mention any of it, of course.

"Ummm… What happened this time?" Well, it had to be asked. Never let it be said that Ranma Saotome was afraid to look a little silly when necessary.

Ucchan looked torn between a sigh and a smirk. "You met a purple tiger, went into the neko-ken, got into a huge fight, lost, ran away to cower behind Shampoo, got chased, and I saved the day. Emma thinks the tiger might be a brainwashed mutant, so Shamps and Bishop took it with them when they went to go rescue the other prisoner."

My eye twitched. "And just why are you carrying a soldier?"

"Emma didn't feel him when she searched for bad guys. She wants to get a good read of his mind to find out why."

I shook my head. "Why didn't we just go with Bishop and Shampoo?"

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Aside from the fact that they've got a giant cat? We've found a guy that can't be scanned telepathically, we had no idea how many more there are, and they aren't afraid to kill. Since a certain redhead was busy chasing a piece of string, the rest of us decided that the two most dangerous people should clear the way, and be a diversion."

I winced. "String? Fucking neko-ken." I took another look at the chef. "Where are your clothes?" I think at this point I should mention something. Yes, I AM attracted to girls. Especially naked girls. But when Ukyo looks like metal, some of the finer details fade away. Nothing huge, but enough that she looks like a statue, not cute girl in silver paint. That's why I managed to avoid sounding embarrassed or nervous. Or getting a nose bleed.

She responded by sticking her hand into her belly, up to the wrist. When she withdrew it, she was holding her shirt. "Best place to hide the smell!" She grinned at me, then frowned. "And just where is my shirt?"

Uh-oh. "Well, I had to get into a vent, and it was kinda tight, so…" I trailed off nervously. "But at least the pants are ok, right?" We both looked at the pants I was wearing. They were covered in claw marks and blood. "Never mind."

Ucchan just laughed at me. "I would be mad, but I can see two **big** reasons not to."

I looked down again, and saw what she meant. Perverted girl. Screw what Akane said, girls are the real perverts. "Hey!" She just kept snickering at me.

"Hey Ucchan,"

"Yeah honey?"

"Next corridor on the right."

"Thanks."

My cute fiancée reached into her shoulder, and pulled out a trio of throwing spatulas. She twirled them around in her fingers, and then flung them out to her right. A few loud screams came out of the corridor. "Lets see them shoot me in the head without any fingers," she growled.

I just sighed, and drifted off in memory. The very first time I saw her mutation. I'd been feeling sorry for myself, but who wouldn't? I'd just found out that I was a mutant, and stuck as a girl. To make matters worse, if I'd been a guy at the time my curse woulda been cured. Then after what happened to Mom and Pop, and Akane, I'd been leaving Nerima, and Nabiki had stopped me, told me to wait for someone. I'd half expected Kuno to show up with katana in hand, and had been surprised to find Shampoo and Ukyo.

The two of them had started carrying on like normal, and then started fighting each other. I'd wandered off, and they followed me. They said that they loved me, and I pointed out that they shouldn't. After all, I was stuck as a girl, and was a mutant freak as well.

They'd talked a lot then, trying to convince me that they wanted me. Then Ucchan picked up her spatula, and cut her own head off with it. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was on the verge of- well, not tears, guys don't cry. But I was pretty sad. When she grew her head back I glomped her in a way that would have made Shampoo proud.

I shook my head and brought my head back to reality. Memory lane could wait, but armed goons couldn't. Speaking of which… "Next one on the left."

The walk pretty much carried on that way, me pointing out targets to Ucchan and her taking care of them. Not that I couldn't, but it wouldn't be fun. A good fight is fun; dealing with henchgoons is just boring.

Eventually, we reached the room we arrived in. There was a bullet hole in one wall, three holes in the wall opposite, and a broken radio on the floor. I just shook my head, and decided to get in contact with Emma.

'Hey Emma, you listening?'

'Ranma? Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?' She was panicking a little. Kinda flattering, I thought. To pacify her, I looked at all my wounds.

'Scratched feet and legs, three cuts in my side, and a really sore head. I've gotten worse from a monkey.'

There was a pause from Emma. 'But then again, that monkey was a master of martial arts Tea Ceremony.'

There was an even longer pause. 'Hello? Emma, you there?'

'Yes, I'm still here. I was doing, um, telepath things.'

Sounded reasonable. 'Oh, ok. Hey, where's Shampoo?'

'Bishop, Ivan, Ivanovich, the cat who you fought and Shampoo are almost there.'

'Cool.'

'And don't mention the Hellfire Club to them. I'll explain why when you get back.'

'Ok.'

'And one last thing,'

'Oh?'

'I'm going to have to teach you to tell a lie from the truth.'

'Huh?'

Before I could question the woman on what she meant, the door opened. Ucchan whipped out her spatula, but it was only Shampoo, who glomped me the moment she laid eyes on me.

"Wo da Arien! So brave!" I let out a small whimper as she squeezed the gash on my side.

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from the door, and Shamps loosened her grip on me enough that I could turn around to face it. Bishop stood there, with a giant purple c-c-c-thing on his shoulders.

"Cat!" I jumped away, and smashed into the wall. Bishop chuckled, and Shampoo and Ukyo made sympathetic noises. "Can we get rid of that thing please?" By having my face still stuck in the wall, I wasn't anywhere near as afr... wary.

A moment later, Ucchan shook my shoulder. "The mean old cat's gone now, honey." I pulled my face out, and Bishop and his evil cargo had disappeared. There was one of Gateway's portals in the middle of the room, so I could guess where they went.

I went towards the portal, but my Amazon wife stopped me. "Aren't you forgetting someone?"

I thought about it for a moment. Me, Shamps, Ucchan, Bishop, evil mutant, goon… oh. "Did you find that other mutant?" Shampoo just pointed at the door.

There are mutants, and there are mutants. One kind are like me or Emma or Shampoo- cool powers, but look normal. The other kind look weird. Some have scales, or feathers, or something. The mutant in the door fell into the second category.

It was the height that first leapt out at me. He must have been the tallest person I've even seen. His head brushed the ceiling. Or heads. That was the second thing that jumped out at me; he had two heads. And the final thing that jumped out at me was that he was green. Not inexperienced green, or slightly nervous green. I mean lime green, on all of his skin.

"So, do you destroy army tanks and helicopters while wearing purple pants?" Hey, I'd seen coverage of the Hulk's latest rampage on the news the night before.

My wife and my fiancée smacked me in the head at the same time, but the left head laughed. "Nyet. Black goes better with my skin complexion." I laughed with him (them?).

Shampoo's eyes went glassy for a moment. "Emma says to hurry up, because Gateway's getting tired."

I nodded, and motioned to the green guy(s?). "Just step through. It'll take us to the hotel that we're staying in. The giant nodded (which looked truly spooky, two heads on the same body nodding in unison), and stepped through. Shampoo followed, and then Ukyo. I looked around the room for a moment, and picked up a magazine that Ukyo had left on the floor. Then I followed everyone through the portal.

* * *

Authors notes: Oh come on! Like I'd actually kill Ukyo. Shame on all of you!

For those of you who don't recognize her, Rahne Sinclair is also known as Wolfbane, a mutant who can turn into a wolf, or a hybrid wolfgirl. She was in X-men: evolution, until she and Jubilee left the X-men because the writers had too many characters to keep track of. The excuse they used was that their parents asked them to come home due to the danger of living in a known mutant-only school.


	8. Chapter 7: Rest and Relaxation

Thanks to **TerraBull** for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to **Questara** and **J. St.C. Patrick**, and **TerraBull** for proofreading previous chapters for me. Especially **J. St.C. Patrick, **who uses some kind of dark magic to wring coherency out of my spelling. Oh, thanks to all the guys at fukufics for all their input, ideas and inspiration.

* * *

I stepped through the portal back into our hotel room. There was quite a crowd. Emma stood in the middle, with Gateway standing next to her. On her other side was a girl a couple of years older than me that I'd never met. She wore dark sunglasses and a leather pants/shirt combo. Briefly I had to wonder if she'd killed Pantyhose to get that much cow skin. In front of them were Bishop, the two-headed green guy, and a lump on the floor with a sheet thrown over it. For a moment I thought I saw it move, but I dismissed it as being my imagination. After all, I was still terif- wary after seeing that cat. Evil little thing. 

I looked to Emma, and Shampoo and Ucchan followed suit, though Ucchan first dropped the guy from the base (she was STILL carrying him), and kicked him on the head. The new two followed our example, and looked at the White Queen as well. I leaned forward, and whispered to Bishop, "She's our boss. She found out where you were, and coordinated the everything. Her name's Emma."

Bishop nodded and stepped forward. "It seems we have you to thank for the jail break, Miss. I owe you a lot. I'm Lucas Bishop."

The left head of the green guy spoke next. "And I am Ivan Goratschin. This squirt here is my little brother Ivanovitch." He pointed at the right head.

"Hey! I'm the brains of this operation, and you aren't the oldest, we're identical!"

I had the feeling that this was all going to take a while. And I really, REALLY hate long boring speeches. Give me a good old-fashioned fight any day. I directed that thought at Emma, and hoped it worked.

The woman with sunglasses stepped away from Emma's side, and came over to the three of us. She had the most expressionless face I'd ever seen. She had short hair, and for a moment I was reminded of Akane. But Akane had always been passionate, always. Angry, happy, sad, determined, always passionate. Except right at the end. I shook my head slightly. Stupid memories. Stupid Tomboy, letting her guard down like that. Stupid girl body wanting to cry.

"There is a first-aid kit in your bedroom," she murmured. Her voice was as emotionless as her face. I nodded a silent thanks and wandered off. Shampoo and Ukyo stayed behind, listening.

In the bedroom, the first thing I did was shut the door. Then I stripped off, and took a tally of my injuries. My feet were cut up as hell, some of the cuts still bleeding. My legs, up to the knees, were also cut, but fewer and shallower. My head had hit something hard, and was throbbing like mad. Those could just be ignored. My side, on the other hand, was a bit more serious. I'd been passing it off as nothing, and the fact that it'd stopped bleeding had made everyone think it was more of the same.

The thing about us martial artists is that we have more control over our body than most people. We can get that extra inch out of a punch; we can move a little faster than someone with the same fitness just because we know all our muscles inside and out. This means that with some wounds, we can tense the right muscles and stop the blood flow for a while. I'd done just that with the three cuts on my side. They hadn't hit anything vital, but I needed stitches, and soon.

But stitching up a dirty wound is a stupid idea, so a shower was in order. The bedroom had a shower connected, so I hopped right in. It took a moment or two to figure it out; seriously, furos are way better.

As I enjoyed the warmth, I couldn't help but remember my situation. After all, being a girl in hot water wasn't something that ever happened to me. Except for that time that Herb locked me, I was always a guy in hot water.

I could remember when I figured out my curse was locked like it was yesterday. It was one of those memories that I'd never forget. It was right there with the day I saw Akane, turned into a doll by Safron, and later as I killed him- or when I held Akane's limp body, crying.

Although, in a way, finding out I was locked was the least memorable of those memories. I mean, it was just more of the same. There was no life or death factor; there was nothing that hadn't happened again and again. So my curse was locked- then a long trip was involved, a battle against a new enemy, Akane might get kidnapped again. Same old, same old. Hell, it was pretty boring, how I found out.

But it was still unnerving, being a girl in hot water, so I finished my shower quickly. I dried off, and wrapped the towel around myself, and walked over to the bed. The first aid kit had everything, so I rubbed some antiseptic over the cut.

The next part was going to be unpleasant. As I discovered when my legs were healing from the incident with Pink and Link, I don't respond too well to anesthetic. My body fights it off better than it does most poison, and I'm virtually immune. They had to use morphine on me to set the bones. And if you've never had morphine before, trust me- you do NOT want to do medical things after you've taken it. That meant that I'd be stitching myself up without any barrier between the pain and me.

Still, I could do it. I'd seen the doctors do it often enough to be able to do it myself. Heh, Martial Arts Sewing revised: Flesh Fold! I chucked to my self at that thought, and got to work.

The lowest slash wasn't too bad. The highest one had me hissing a little, but I managed ok. It was the middle one that was the worst. It was deeper than the rest, and a lot tenderer. I swore quite a few times as I worked. There was even one moment when I sewed my finger to the wound- that had me really pissed off.

* * *

"So the Hellfire Club is trying to make it so everyone's a mutant?" Asked a slightly puzzled Bishop. He had resisted all attempts to call him Lucas. 

Emma shook her head. "Not quite. I've had genetic studies done; eventually, everyone will be a mutant. That will take about seven hundred years, on it's own. I want to hurry the process along, cut a few centuries off the time. The main problem is keeping mutant kind intact that long."

"Intact?" asked a confused Ivanovitch.

"The Sentinel program was intended to hunt down mutants and exterminate them. There are other programs in development, other fanatics, who want to wipe mutants from the face of the world. To counter them, the Hellfire club works through two different means: economical, and the Hellions.

Economic is fairly straight forward. Use leverage against the government to keep them from enacting anti-mutant legislation. Blackmail, bribe and threaten to make sure that no one has the money to enact large-scale plans."

"And where do the Hellions fit in?"

"They are the military side of the club. When something can't be bought, it can be broken. They were disbanded in 1945, due to the rarity of chi adepts."

"Chi adepts?"

"I'll answer that one," Ukyo piped up. "Chi is the energy of the body. The best martial artists can use chi for lots of things. Ranma can use it to form energy blasts, and make tornados. Shampoo and I aren't that good, but we can use it to reinforce our muscles. We can jump over a two story house without much trouble."

"Indeed, a single chi adept can be more dangerous than a small army. It was discovered back in 1800 that a small group of chi adepts were the most effective force to use. But the last one that we trained died before my time."

Bishop frowned. "1945… Why does that date sound familiar?" The black man mused.

Emma chuckled. "That was the end of World War Two. Let's just say that when Hitler committed suicide, it wasn't altogether his idea. The last Hellion used his entire chi to kill Hitler, at the expense of his own life."

Bishop's eyes bugged out in understanding. "But Mutants can do the same stuff. Is that why you want us? To join your Hellions?"

The White Queen gave a small smile. "Well, yes and no. Yes, I would greatly appreciate it is you were to be a member of the Hellions. No, in the sense that there would be a good chance that eventually, you would join the Hellfire club proper."

"There is another problem with that," Shampoo interjected. "You haven't found a leader for them yet."

The quiet woman, Sage, who had been silent until now, chose this moment to join the conversation. "Hopefully, Ranma will take up that position. She has far greater chi manipulation skills than many masters of martial arts."

Bishop looked around. "Where did she go? She did get back with the rest of us, right?" He sounded worried. Of course, considering how much of an eyeful he got of her, it was to be expected.

All the conscious women in the room nodded. "I sent her to her room, to make use of the first-aid kit there. She seemed to require it." Sage half lied. Saying that she sent Ranma out of the room so that Bishop wouldn't ignore Emma and spend the whole time staring at a pair of naked breasts wouldn't be diplomatic.

"Well, someone should see how she is," Bishop started eagerly, only to be interrupted by a string of Japanese from Ranma's room. Ukyo and Emma blushed, Shampoo looked a little confused, and Bishop, Jeeves, Sage, Ivan and Ivanovitch were completely lost. "What was that?"

Shampoo frowned cutely. "I must have misheard that. My Japanese isn't that good, and I know what she said isn't possible."

"I saw it done once," Ukyo began, only to blush even further. "I mean, never mind. Lets go give Ranchan a hand." She walked off, Shampoo following.

Emma cleared her throat. "Discussions can continue later, I believe. Jeeves, would you show our new guests their rooms? Sage, take that cat-mutant to my suite. There's a secure room there that can hold it for now, until I can figure out what to do with it." Everyone moved off to do as she said, leaving just her and the unconscious guard in the room.

* * *

I let off another string of curses as I started the next stitch. So far I'd stitched my fingers to the wound twice, to each other once, and had to redo the all the stitches when I realized I'd been using normal thread instead of actual nylon. Boy, had I felt stupid. 

As I slipped for the millionth time, and swore up a storm, a pair of steel hands latched mine, while soft arms encircled my shoulders. I sighed, and looked back to see my fiancée and my wife looking at me with an odd combination of worry, pity, and anger.

"Ayah! Arien! You should have said something!"

"You jackass! Why didn't you mention you were hurt?"

"Hey!" I rebutted indigently. "It wasn't that bad!"

"Yeah, and Okonomiyaki tastes bad." Oh oh. When Ucchan starts using bad Okonomiyaki as a contrast, she's serious.

I was periphelly aware of Shampoo moving behind me, but kept my attention on Ucchan. "Look, I was doing just fine, see? Two cuts done, one to go. No worries, right?"

A sexy contralto came from behind me, hot breath blowing across my neck. "Wo da Arien," I turned around nervously. Shampoo was looking at me with lidded eyes, her dress showing even more than normal. She took a deep breath, and jiggled slightly. My eyes bugged out as I watched the effect her actions had on her …assets.

Then I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head, and everything went dark.

* * *

Ukyo pulled a dented combat spatula off the mass of red hair, and watched Shampoo pull her dress up slightly. She gave the Amazon a grin. "Lets get that cut sewed up before he comes to."

* * *

Jeeves walked down the hall of the hotel, the rescued prisoners following. They were looking around in awe at how extravagant the place was. Bishop was the first to find his tongue. "Is this a mansion or something?"

Jeeves resisted the temptation to laugh. "Not quite, master Bishop. This is a hotel mistress Frost owns. This entire floor is set aside for her and any personal guests she might have, and there are mounted holographic projectors to fool the room service into believing that any obvious mutants look like regular people."

"So we can just wander around, and order room service 'an all?" piped up an excited Ivanovitch. His older head smiled hopefully.

The aged butler nodded. "Don't worry about the money either. Remember: you do get paid for being in the Hellfire Club, and there are perks. In this case- free room service."

Ivan put a hand on his chin theatrically. "Promises of food have caused loyalties more strong than any religion ever has." Bishop grinned. This was the start of a good friendship.

* * *

Sage puffed as she dragged a purple panther along through the hotel. She was irritated, she would say, if asked. It would be more accurate to say that she was furious. She wasn't the brawn, she was the brains! If computer hacking was needed, call Sage! If probability calculations were needed, call Sage! If infiltration, intuition, diplomacy were needed, call Sage! If heavy objects needed moving, call someone else. 

A janitor walking past heard a gravely grating sound. He sweatdropped upon realizing it was the leather-clad woman's teeth grinding together.

* * *

Emma looked over the (still) unconscious soldier. There was no outward clue to his telepathic immunity, nothing that made him look any different from any other soldier. So- time to investigate. 

Working quickly, she removed all his clothing, leaving him in his underwear- she would have removed it, but it was wet. The White Queen wrinkled her nose, then fetched some deodorant.

Two cans later, she was ready to continue. Off came the dog tags, the ear piercing, and a bracelet. She tried to scan him again, and got a truly odd response. The normal brain gives off telepathic and empathic broadcasts at all times. There were only two ways to avoid that. One was with the use of mental shields. They were a way of marshaling ones thoughts, putting a barrier between thoughts and the outside world.

The other way was used in Magneto's helmet, and in the walls of the lower part of the Black Hand base. It was difficult, but was capable of creating an impenetrable telepathic zone. No thought wave could pass through the metal alloy.

But this soldier exhibited neither. There seemed to be no 'wall' in his mind, and yet none of his thoughts escaped. It was like his mind was… a valve! Emma snapped her fingers. That explained it! She couldn't read him before because he was so far away. None of his thoughts escaped, a telepath would have to go inside his mind all on their own, with none of the unconscious help that an average mind gave.

'But how?' Emma asked herself. She rolled the soldier over, examining his head. There was still no outward sign of what had been done to him. So that meant one thing: Time to call in the experts. No matter how irritating they were.

* * *

Shampoo finished up the last stitch, and put the needle and thread away. She took a moment to survey her handiwork. The two cuts Ranma had managed to stitch up were acceptable, but the attempts on the middle one were terrible. With all the activity, the wound was actually worse than it had been. She pointed this out to Ukyo. 

"Well, no fighting for Ranchan for a while, that's for sure!" The chef proclaimed. Of the three, Ranma was actually the easiest damaged. Ukyo could shrug off just about anything in her metal form, and if her human form was damaged she'd just turn into metal by reflex. Shampoo had the Bakusai Tenketsu training, making her almost invulnerable. Ranma had none of those advantages.

A sly smirk crawled across the amazons face. "I think we can find something else for him to do, to keep his strength up…"

Ukyo smirked back, the frowned. "Can he do… that? With his stitches and all?"

"…damn." Shampoo muttered. "Yes, but we'll have to take it easy. Those stitches aren't meant for too much movement."

"How do you know so much about this stuff? Amazon training?"

Shampoo giggled. "No, I mostly stayed away from that side of things at home. It was when I moved here, to get revenge on that pesky redhead that I learned. I moved in with a doctor, as his nurse. It was before you arrived in Nerima."

"Did I ever meet this doctor?"

A sad frown crossed the Amazon warrior's face. "No, Tofu disappeared before long. I still wonder what happened to him." She grinned. "I think grandmother had her eye on him!"

"How old was he?" Ukyo asked tentatively.

"About 30!"

"Gak!!!"

* * *

Sage walked into the White Queen's room. As expected, it was white to the point of being almost painful on the eyes. Wallpaper, furniture, carpet, everything. It was just like Emma's room in her mansion, or in any of the other dozens of hotels she used all over the world. 

She walked along to the bedrooms, taking a mental tally- Emma's room, a library/study, an indoor pool, and a cell. Sage was always a little worried when she saw one of these. After all, a woman as rich as Miss Frost could have converted another room on the floor into one, or even a whole building. Why would she always have one right by her bedroom?

But thoughts about her employer's sexual habits could wait; there were tasks to be done first. Sage dragged the panther inside the cell, and locked it in there. It was a fairly typical jail cell- small, cement, and lacking a toilet seat. The only ways it differed from something you would find in the local police station were the NO2 sprayers and the hidden cameras. Well, those and the manacles on one wall.

Sage really tried not to think about what the White Queen would do with them.

* * *

Emma was on her cellphone, finishing up a conversation when Shampoo and Ukyo walked into the room. She had a hand massaging her forehead. 

"Listen to me nephew: you WILL be there when I get home. You WILL be ready to do what I want, and there will be NO convention. Wait for the next one. No, I don't care. Bye." She put her phone away and looked at the Asian girls. "How is she?"

Shampoo grimaced. "It could be worse. The claws missed any organs, but the cuts are pretty deep. If she hadn't been stopping the blood flow, she wouldn't have made it to the bedroom."

Emma looked stricken. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Yes, she'll be fine with a couple of week's rest."

"The problem'll be making sure she actually rests," Ukyo chimed in. "I love that Jackass, but she does push herself too hard. Stubborn as a mule." Shampoo nodded.

The White Queen frowned. "How exactly are we going to make sure that happens?"

Shampoo raised an eyebrow. "Were you going to ask her about the Hellions as soon as she was available?" Emma nodded. "Then the moment she hears this, she'll be trying to train Bishop and Ivan. That'll pull the stitches for sure."

"Maybe we could wait till she gets better?" put in Ukyo.

The Amazon laughed. "When was the last time a secret got kept around Ranma? It'll slip out eventually. It always does."

Emma thought about it for a moment. "If she finds out, she'll start training. We can't keep the secret. We can't let her train." She snapped her fingers. "What if we kept her away from Bishop and Goratschin altogether? She can't train someone if she's nowhere near them."

Ukyo and Shampoo grinned in unison. "That would work."

A dreamy look came across Emma's face. "When I left home, I was about your age. I wanted to get as far away from my family as possible. I moved here from England. When I was wondering just what to do in the weeks before I went to Harvard, I stumbled across this American idea."

"What idea?"

"Well, it wouldn't work in my country or yours- too small. China either- not developed enough. In fact, it would only work in America, Australia, Canada and Europe. It's called a 'Road Trip'."

The Onomyaiki chef rolled her eyes. "Road trip. You mean just drive somewhere? We DO have cars in Japan."

"Some would say that most of them end up here," Emma laughed. "But this is America. Say what you will about all the morbidly obese people and gun fanatics, it does have good points. Driving along the open road, just you and the people you care about. No worries, no responsibilities, nothing. Stop where you feel like, eat when you feel like. See the sights."

"That does sound nice…:" Shampoo mussed.

"And it would be about two weeks of driving from here to the place I was planning to move to." Emma pointed out.

"She could heal properly…" considered Ukyo.

Emma delivered the coup-de-grace. "It would be a proper honeymoon…"

"It's a plan!" The two mutants announced. "Now lets tell Ranchan/Arien!"

* * *

"Alright old Ghoul, what happened this time?" I sighed tiredly. It had been a hard day- explosions everywhere, the entire local loony population coming out to play, and a chance a cure wasted. I just wanted to get it all over with. Hopefully this could be wrapped up in an hour or so. 

Opposite me, a woman with more wrinkles than most retirement villages rubbed her chin thoughtfully. That was a bad sign. She hadn't bopped me with her stick. She ALWAYS bopped me with the stick.

"…I'm not altogether certain, son-in-law." She finally said. "I do have some ideas though."

"I don't remember getting splashed with any special water, ya know? Nothing that could have come outa Herb's ladle." Stupid Musk and their ways of getting a girlfriend.

She blinked. "I hadn't even thought of that." Whoa, not often I outsmart the old hag. Except when marrying Shampoo was involved, of course. "Tell me, when was the last time you saw Ryoga?"

I snickered to myself. "He tried to hit me for losing his chance to get cured about an hour ago, then got splashed and trotted off for water. Haven't seen him since."

Cologne hopped onto her staff. "Then I have an idea."

"What? Magic?"

"No. Something else."

I scratched my head. "What else could affect a magical curse except magic?"

"Something similar happened to Shampoo a week ago." She avoided answering my question.

"Shit! Is she locked too?" Man oh man. Being a cat forever. I wouldn't wish that upon Principle Kuno, let alone Shampoo. My mission to look for a cure doubled in importance.

"No. She's cured."

Phew. Wait a moment… "Why did she get cured and not me? How did she get cured? Can ya cure me?" More questions would have poured out, but wooden stick to the head interrupted me.

"Shut up and listen! Here is what I know and what I do not. You are locked. Shampoo is cured. Mousse, Ryoga, your father, Pantyhose Tarou and Herb are the same as always."

"Herb and Tarou? You sure?"

I was rewarded with another bop to the head. "I may be three hundred years old, but I do know how to work a phone.

Now listen- having thought about it, I have some thoughts. The curse didn't lock just because you had it for so long- if it had, Genma, Ryoga or Tarou would have been affected. I think what happened is that the curse was confused by changes in your body."

I went bug eyed. "Hinako-sensei never mentioned that puberty locked magical curses." Bop.

The old Ghoul was getting pissed off now. "Are you even listening? Tarou was cursed before you, and is older than you. HE isn't locked."

"Then what happened, and how do I cure it?" Whys could wait. Getting a cure was more important.

"A week ago, do you remember what happened?" That came out of nowhere.

"Jusendo." One word. A single small word. Seemed too small to fit everything that happened. My fight against Saffron. Akane almost dying, over and over again. The destruction of the Pools of Sorrow.

"And how did you feel when you lost your cure today? Did it feel like everything had been taken from you? That no matter how hard you tried, it would always be out of reach?" Her voice was softer now. She sounded sympathetic, but still getting to a point. "That's how my granddaughter felt when she saw you holding Akane, crying over her."

"So what does that mean?" I asked in a small voice."

The crone cackled. "Wake up Arien!"

What the hell?

"Now, get up Ranchan!"

I opened my eyes, took one look at two beautiful girls, and curled up into a ball. A second later, I realized just who I was looking at and uncurled. Shamps and Ucchan each grinned at me. "Did I fall asleep?"

Their grins turned a little strained. "Uh… yeah. You were tired after you finished stitching yourself up." Ucchan said. Shampoo gave her a funny look.

I rubbed by head. "Huh. I must have hit my head hard at that military base, 'cause it still hurts. What was my cat self up to?" Ukyo started sweating, and looked everywhere around the room except at me.

'Ranma! Shampoo! Ukyo!' Emma's voice called out to us from the other room. Ucchan rushed after the voice, way faster than was necessary. Girls- go figure. Shampoo followed me out, giggling.

Emma was sitting on the floor, next to a naked man. He was the soldier that Ucchan had carried, and boy did he stink. "Ucchan…"

My cute fiancée froze in place. "Yes?" She sounded really nervous.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop scaring people so much?!?"

"Uhh…"

I held up my hand. "I don't care if he shot you in the head or badmouthed okonomiyaki. Just stop doing it!" Ukyo looked down ashamedly.

Emma's eyes were bugging out. "This happens often?"

"Yup," I sighed. "In school, people would occasionally say in passing that they didn't like okonomiyaki, or that he was pretty gay looking. It never ended well."

She eyed up Ucchan. "She does look a little butch…"

A vein on Ucchan's forehead was twitching. "I was pretending to be a guy!"

"Ohhhh…. Oh!" Realization finally caught up with the White Queen. She shook her head. "Anyway, there was a reason I called you all. I may have found out how they shielded from my telepathy."

"How?"

Emma cleared her throat. "The normal human brain projects its thoughts to a certain extent. This man doesn't. For all purposes, he's like a telepathic valve. Signals go in, but they don't come out again. Unless you were close by, and knew beyond a doubt exactly where he was, he'd be impossible to read."

Wow. I may not have known much (anything at all) about telepathy, but that sounded pretty impressive. Kinda like me in the Umisen-ken; impossible to find. But in the Umisenken a lucky shot can get me. "Can ya still make him do stuff?" Emma gave me a look. I hastily explained. "If ya cant read him, does other telepathic stuff work?"

She looked impressed. "Some of it does. Reading memories? No. Convincing him that he's a potato? As easy at it would be for anyone." Ucchan and Shamps looked impressed too.

I scratched my head and looked at the naked guy. "Are we gonna keep him?"

My cute fiancée's eyes bugged out. "You want him as a pet?!?"

"NoNoNo!" I panicked, waving my hands in front of me. "Are we going to toss him back to that base, or keep him prisoner?"

Emma looked thoughtful. "It would be useful to know how they manage to shield, but it's more important that they think we don't know about it. As much as my expert would love to investigate it, I believe we'll have to send him back. Shampoo, please take him to Gateway. Ukyo, follow her with his clothes." They nodded, and wandered off. I started after them, but Emma put her hand on my shoulder. "Please wait."

Ucchan and Shampoo went out the door, carrying their loads. They shut the door, arguing. "Look, if you don't want to carry soiled clothes, stop making people crap themselves!"

I just sighed. They weren't trying to beat each other to death anymore, but they still argued a fair bit. It was naïve of me to think that they could just put everything behind them like that, but at least they were trying. "So, boss, what do ya want?

'Boss' glared at me. Her voice came out colder than ice. "Don't call me that." Her voice returned to normal. "I wanted to ask you something."

"I'm listening."

"When you went to tend to your wounds, I explained about the Hellfire Club to Ivan and Bishop. I also talked about something I had no time to mention to you- the Hellions."

That rang a bell. "Didn't Shampoo tell Bishop we were Hellions?"

She gave a pleased smile. "Yes, I told her to. The name 'Hellfire' is well known in certain circles. The Hellions are the fighters of the Hellfire Club. They are usually commanded by an experienced member, and carry out the Hellfire Club's orders."

"Ah. You want me to join, right?" Well, if I know anything, it's fighting.

"I want you to lead them. Teach them, and train them in their mutant powers. Take them into battle." She cleared her throat. "But teach them honor as well. To know when to fight, and when to show kindness."

That sounded pretty. I wondered how long she spent thinking that speech up. "Um. I've never really taught anyone before. I think I can manage it… I'll do it." I rubbed my chin. "Actually, there was something I was thinking about. You got a lota money, right?"

She looked at me with amusement. "I could buy myself a country, and barely affect my bank account at all."

"And you probably know a few people in the government as well?"

"One or two."

I decided to come out and say it. "Then do you think that Shampoo and Ucchan could open a café?"

Emma looked a little confused. "But you hardly need the money. You all will be getting more in a month than a café would make in a year."

She just wasn't getting it. "But the money isn't the point. The cooking is." She looked blankly at me. "Ucchan loves okonomiyaki as much as she loves me, and Shampoo's almost as bad with Chinese food. They LOVE cooking, and having people eat it."

Understanding shone in the White Queen's eye. "Ohh. That makes sense. I've known any number of people, including myself, who have far more money than they will ever need. They keep in the game though, investing, diversifying, and reinvesting. They do it for joy, not any real need."

"Yeah," I said. "That's just it. So whatdya say?"

"Easily. Will you be able to train and lead the Hellions as well?"

"Heh, no prob. I'm not as much a chef as they are, I just like eating food." We both chuckled.

"Shall we ask them what they want in the place?"

I thought about that for a moment. "How about we have it for a surprise. I know just how to have the place look." I wandered in to the bedroom, and went to Ucchans small pile of possessions. Finding a wallet, I brought it back to Emma. She gave it a look. "Hey, she's a serious cross dresser," I pointed out. I rifled through it, pulling out a series of photographs. I passed them to Emma.

Emma looked at each one in turn, sweatdropping almost constantly. I took them as she finished with each one. Ucchan cooking her very first okonomiyaki. A close up of the okonomiyaki. A picture of me, guy form, eating an okonomiyaki, and another of me as a girl eating one. A picture of her shop at Nerima. Another picture of an okonomiyaki. A picture of me, Shampoo and her standing in front of the ship we were about to leave on.

The last picture made Emma blush slightly, and she passed it to me quickly. I took a look and groaned. It was one where Ucchan tried to combine her two great loves- okonomiyaki and me. In bed. The result was fun, and tasty, but not something that should be showed to anyone else.

"The one of her shop should suffice. I'll make it a little bigger though." She decided not to mention the last picture, thankfully.

"Yeah," I added helpfully. "Don't furnish it. I bet Ucchan wants to do that. Girls always wanna play with decorating and stuff." Emma gave me the evils. Uh-oh, time for a distraction. "How long do ya think it'll take?"

Emma looked thoughtful. "Two weeks, I think."

"How the heck can we keep it a secret for two weeks?" I groaned. Secrets never last. At least I've never been able to keep one.

I was answered by a smile. "Let me take care of that."

* * *

Authors notes: Yeah, it's short. And it took ages. Well, I sure have an excuse. Between World Of Warcraft (Which has more-or-less eaten my soul), University Applications (Which they make confusing on purpose, as an IQ test, to see if you are worthy to enter their sacred halls), Christmas Shopping (when you have 2 brothers, 3 sisters and 4 parents, it gets expensive), and family illness (Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer on the day of his 50th birthday, given 6 months to live, and died 5 months early), I haven't found a lot of time or effort to put into things. Sorry. 

Story-Related authors notes: Well, some of you were surprised when I mentioned that Ranma was locked in girl form. Not altogether sure why, as its been mentioned at least twice before then. So to avoid further confusion, I'm gonna say it out loud: RANMA IS LOCKED IN GIRL-FORM!!!!

However, this isn't one of those "Ranma gets locked in girl form, and becomes a girl mentally" fics. Not that I have anything against them, on the contrary: Sunny and Trimatter in particular have proven just how well they can be done. But I'm not doing one. This is more of a "Ranma locked as a girl, stays a guy in the head, and spends the whole time looking for a cure" fic. And you have my promise that eventually, he'll find his cure.

Another thing I have to mention is the gender pronoun. Some may have noticed that I'm normally calling Ranma 'she'. That's because we fit what we say to the person listening. Shampoo and Ukyo know that Ranma is a guy, and think of him as a him. But even to Emma, who knows Ranma's a boy, she thinks of him as a girl, as she never spent any time with him before. So mostly as a matter of avoiding strange looks, Ukyo and Shampoo call him 'she' in public.

Next chapter will be a crossover or two. Or three. Or four. Basically, as chaotic a road trip as you can possibly imagine.

I've had a few people comment on Ivan and Ivanovitch, mostly on the fact that Ivanovitch means son-of-Ivan. That will be explained in full later on.

And finally- MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODDY!!!!


	9. Chapter 8: Road Trips

Disclamer: I don't own Ranma, or X-men, as usual. I don't own the Avengers, Half Life, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Daredevil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spooksville, or anyone associated with any of them. I just stuck them all in a blender.

Thanks to blackmamuth, PCHeintz72, Heaven's Deamon, khim, Lwf58, and as always J. St.C. Patrick, who turns my insane typos into something resembling coherency.

* * *

The door opened, and I grinned, thinking it was my wife and my fiancée. My hopes were dashed to see the woman in all the leather. Her Akane-style hair made my heart pang. But she was far better at hiding her emotions than Akane ever was, a fact that was probably better for someone, judging by how pissed she was.

Emma smiled at her. "Tessa, thank you." She looked at me and at the other girl. "Oh, I almost forgot. Ranma, meet Tessa, also known as Sage."

Sage walked over and shook my hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Tessa is from Afghanistan. Her mutant power is her astounding memory. She is incapable of forgetting anything. She also has the position of Rook."

That didn't make a lot of sense. "Huh?"

Emma winced. "My apologies. I haven't been sleeping a lot recently. In the Hellfire club, the Inner circle, the ones with the highest rank, are referred to by the names of chess pieces. I am the White Queen, in charge overall. Sage is the Rook, in charge of the economics of the club- managing our money. As the leader of the Hellions, you would be the Knight."

That sounded cool. Wait a minute. Queen, knight, rook… "What about a king? And that other piece, the one that goes in diagonals?"

The White Queen winced again. "The King requires years of training, and there is no one the take the place. That isn't much of a problem, and the King and Queen share the same duties. The other piece though, the Bishop, is Shampoo. I asked her while you were unconscious. The Bishop handles the political side of things, and I think she would do very well in that respect."

I chuckled. "That's gonna get a little confusing, with two Bishops around."

Emma smiled. "Indeed." She frowned for a moment. "Oh, Tessa?"

"Yes?" She was still pissed, though I doubt Emma picked up on it.

"I have another job for you- one more suited to your abilities." Sage perked up. "I need new identities for Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo."

Sage nodded. "Any name preferences?" Emma looked at me.

Names ran though my head. Ranma? Ranko? Sunshine? (Where the hell did that come from?) No, I needed something newish. Something I could remember, but that wouldn't give me away. "Yoiko." I used it once when pretending to be bacon-butt's sister. "I'll just take what ever last name Shampoo and Ucchan come up with."

Sage nodded, and turned to Emma. "And the others?"

Her eyes went glassy. "Shampoo wants Elizabeth Braddock. Ukyo wants Cessily Kincaid."

I started panicking. Shit, this was gonna be bad. Now I had to pick one last name over the other, and I knew that whichever one I didn't pick was gonna be pissed. I told this to Emma.

* * *

"Cessily Kincaid?'

"Well, you remember how at school, I dressed like a boy? I've been doing that since I was a kid. When I was about thirteen, it got too much to handle. I started going out at night to clubs, in dresses. I didn't want anyone to connect me with my school boy persona, so I used Cessily Kincaid as a name." Ukyo explained.

"Ah."

"So," Ukyo enquired. "Why Elizabeth Braddok?"

Shampoo smiled in remembrance. "My mother's sister married a foreigner, an English man. They moved to England, and had a son. That son, Brian Braddock, comes to visit me every year, and we've been writing letters to each other all the time. I wanted to have the same family name as my cousin."

"And the Elizabeth part?"

"Oh, that's easy," She said breezily. "My name is Xain-pu, but I like people to call be Shampoo- it sounds cuter. So- Elizabeth becomes Betsy!"

Shampoo looked proud, while Ukyo face faulted. Since she was carrying urine-soaked clothes, it wasn't a pretty result.

* * *

"Ranma," started Emma. "Have you ever heard of a thing called a Hyphen ?"

Hmmm. "The big storm?"

She didn't groan, but I could tell she wanted to. "No, that's a typhoon. A Hyphen is a line in-between words. It lets a person have two last names."

My eyes bugged out. "You can DO that!??!"

I could tell Emma was on the verge of groaning when the door opened again, this time admitting my fiancée and my wife. Ucchan smelled bad, for some reason.

"Bad guy disposed of, ma'am!" Ukyo saluted. I snickered, and Emma glowered.

"Now, I have some news for the three of you," she started. "Since Ranma has agreed to lead the Hellions, I now have to find the troops. I have several names in mind, and that leads to a small problem."

"Too many people?"

"No, I'm afraid that they'd start a pecking order based on who arrived first. The first one's to start training would have an advantage over the later ones. I do have a plan that would prevent that."

I perked up. Was this how she was gonna get some space to make a restaurant?

"If the three of you would drive to Bayville, instead of being teleported by gateway, that would give two weeks for me to assemble a team. What do you say?"

* * *

And that's how we decided to go on a road trip. I was pretty smug, but for some reason, so were Ucchan and Shamps. After they wandered away to do girly things, I came up with an idea.

* * *

"Hey, Emma," I asked.

"Mmmm?" She looked up from some papers.

"Since Gateway can teleport us anywhere, do we have to leave from here?"

She raised an eyebrow. "No, but why do you want to go somewhere else?"

I grinned. "I'm more than a little bored. So I figured, why not go somewhere exciting… like New York!"

Emma smiled exasperatedly. "You want to go to the most chaotic city in the country? The one with two permanent teams of superheroes, and a few dozen independent ones?"

"Hey, I like excitement. Pleeease?" I gave her my 'I want extra ice-cream, and I'm not gonna pay for it' look. She crumbled faster than a power pole getting a Hibiki hug.

* * *

'Shampoo.'

'Yes, Emma?' Shampoo stopped her sewing to respond to the telepathic call.

'Ranma… convinced me that you three should start your trip in New York.'

' ' The Amazon broadcasted her amusement. 'She gave you the ice-cream look, didn't she?'

Emma had the grace to leave that question unanswered. 'You'll have to keep her from fighting when ever possible. That wound needs to heal, remember.'

'I told YOU that, remember?' She rebutted. 'Don't worry- Ukyo's spatula can hold up for a lot of head blows.'

'Bad idea.'

'Huh?'

Emma groaned over the link. 'How long do you think that she can keep getting clubbed on the head before she gets brain damage? For that matter, how do you know she doesn't already?'

Shampoo paled. '…..'

'Exactly. Let me make it clear for you- do not, under ANY circumstances, allow Ranma to get into a fight, or knock her unconscious to avoid one.'

Shampoo relayed that conversation to Ukyo, who was figuring out a map. "Well, on the one hand my Spatula will stay in shape," she mussed. "On the other hand, I've gotta find a new route!"

Shampoo leaned over. "Well, if we start there, and go in that direction, it should work out fine." She picked up her needle again, and got back to work.

* * *

And that afternoon, we took one of Gateway's portals to a Car shop Emma recommended.

* * *

"So," smiled the greasy salesman. "What do you think? It can go from 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds. It boasts a top speed of 170. If you want to go fast, this is the car for you."

Shampoo frowned cutely. She was slightly more knowledgeable about cars than the rest of us, so she was handling the talking here. "170 kilometers? That isn't so fast."

The salesman smiled condescendingly. "170 miles. That's 274 kilometers an hour."

My Amazon nodded. "And what other features does it have."

"An Alpine radio/CD audio system with MP3 play and 6 disc muliti-changer, onboard GPS, deluxe sound system, and a reinforced chassis, on the off chance of a crash. The entire framework is made of somewhat stronger material than the government recommends, so I can guarantee you that in anything short of a head on crash with a truck, this car will come out with less damage than the other car." The greedy man rubbed his hands together. "Of course, it is a little pricey…" I almost laughed at his attempt to see if we had the money.

Shampoo nodded. "But we haven't addressed the most important part of this." Me, Ukyo and the salesman leaned forward. "What color scheme?"

There was a slight crunching sound as me and the guy face faulted into the floor. Ukyo nodded to Shampoo. "Hmmm. White, with a black interior?"

"No, this isn't for Emma. Black?"

"Too hot in the sun. Aquamarine?"

"No, it would clash with my hair, any shade of blue would. Hot Pink?"

I groaned. "Girls." The salesman nodded, and then jumped slightly.

He looked a little tentative. "Do you have any preference, madam?"

"On color? As long as it ain't pink, I don't care. You guys DO paint cars, right?

The salesguy laughed snootily. "Of course we do. We strive to ensure complete customer satisfaction."

Well THAT was rehearsed. "How long does it take? We got a road trip we wanna get started with."

"Four days, for the perfect finish."

"Nuh-uh. Tommorow."

"TOMMOROW?!?!?!?"

I smirked. "Yup. Lunchtime, we wanna be on the road."

The guy sighed. I got the feeling he was used to rich idiots making stupid demands all the time. "2 o'clock. Or I can't guarantee the durability of the paint."

"Cool."

"MOSS!!!!" came a shriek in stereo.

"Arh! My ears!" I moaned.

Salesguy just smiled snootily again. "I take it you have made your choice, ladies?"

Ukyo nodded enthusiastically. "This shade of moss green." She waved a color chart around triumphantly. Shampoo nodded behind her.

I leaned over to take a better look. "Huh. Cool. Can we leave now?"

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Sure, Ranchan."

"Lets not go to the hotel just yet," Shampoo put in. "Let's see the sights."

* * *

And we saw the sights. Man, I swear, there is no city in the world more boring than New York. It DID have good ice cream, though.

* * *

"Hey, what flavor do you want? I'm going with Cookies and Cream." Ranma asked. Ukyo bent over to take a look. She pursed her lips, and then heard a voice in her head.

'Quickly! Grab arien, put his back to the road, and kiss him like his life depended on it!' Shampoo's telepathic voice ordered. Ukyo had no need of being told twice, and scooped up her fiancé.

Shampoo turned around, and sighed in relief that she'd got her husband distracted in time. A man, covered head to toe in flames, was flying in pursuit of a dozen identical robots. Behind them were a man made out of orange rock, a blond woman, and a man following in a car, with a big '4' on the side of it.

A minute later, they disappeared. Shampoo turned her attention back to Ranma and Ukyo, who were still kissing. The Amazon tensed her jaw. 'You can stop now, they're gone.' She scanned the surface of her husband's mind. 'And so is arien. Not enough oxygen.'

* * *

…And I found out how much Ucchan likes Cookies and Cream flavor. There were other sights to see- there was this big ass statue, the one with the pointy bits on its head that you always see on American movies.

* * *

An onomyiaki chef, a Chinese chef and a bored occasional waitress stood on the viewing platform, in the Statue of Liberty.

"I'm bored," said the redhead. "Do they do bungee jumping here, or something?"

Shampoo snorted. "You get bored too too easy." She got a couple of strange looks from her lover and her co-wife.

"I thought she had perfect English now," whispered Ranma. "What happened?"

"I think she just had it temporarily, as a leftover from teaching us," Ukyo whispered back. "I bet it was the plan from the beginning."

Ranma surprised Ukyo by smiling. "Cool." Ukyo gave a startled look at that, so Ranma elaborated. "Heck, I always knew how smart she was. But I loved her accent- it was so cute!"

Ukyo chuckled and nodded, before something caught her eye. A flash of blue and red, swinging through the air, following a man with four metal tentacles. The chef went into panic mode, and spun round, searching.

Success! A cleaning closet! She bumped into Shampoo, and murmured in her ear. "Get Ranchan into that closet, and keep him there. Something's happening, and it looks like it's gonna take a while." Shampoo didn't even wait long enough to nod; she grabbed the redhead by the collar and dragged her into the closet.

* * *

I also learnt that Shampoo has a thing for doing it in public places. That was less of a shock than it could have been- she used to roof hop in those mini-dresses back in Nerima.

We even went to the zoo- they didn't have any of the really interesting animals (like Musk, Phoenix tribe, Phoenixes, Oroochi, Oni, or flying plants), but it was still ok.

* * *

"Huh. I thought panda's were supposed to be fatter than that," noted Ranma. "Do ya think that they don't feed them enough here?"

"I think that your dad just makes a very fat panda," pointed out Ukyo. "After all, he does make a very fat human."

"Too too true. Hey, lets go and see the giraffes!"

"Sounds good. Any one know where they are?"

The three of them looked around, and upwards. Ukyo and Shampoo sweatdropped upon seeing a man in silver Armour, with five-meter legs, chasing around a man in red leather, who was swinging from a silver chain attached to a Billy club.

Feeling left out, the transgender martial artist piped up. "Hey, do you see them?" before muttering to herself, "I hate my stupid midget girl form. I swear, the height difference is one of the worst parts."

The two girls snapped out of their daze. "Lets look at the aquarium instead."

"Ayah, lets go!"

"Hey...what…why...stop pushing…WATCH THE HANDS!"

* * *

I also learned that the two of them really like fish. They wouldn't let me leave either, and they would randomly start talking real loud. Women.

We had dinner at an exclusive restaurant that evening. The food was small, and we had to wait ages, but it did taste pretty good. I think it was Italian.

* * *

"Man," said Ranma, savoring the lemony taste. "This rabbit rules! I never had rabbit this nice before."

Ukyo looked up from her steak, raising an eyebrow. "You've had a lot of rabbit?"

The pigtailed girl nodded sheepishly. "Well, on the road, all we brought with us was rice. Any other food we wanted, we had to catch our selves. Rabbits were easy to find, and no farmers got pissy if we took them. Now, sheep on the other had…" he grinned.

The onomyiaki chef rolled her eyes. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. Genma Saotome- Child neglecter, thief, liar, sheep rustler."

Shampoo giggled. "Too, too true. But great teacher."

Ranma laughed out loud. "Yeah. His head might be almost empty, but he sure knows martial arts."

"Some could say the same about you, you know." Ukyo pointed out.

The redhead responded by pouting cutely. Not that any amount of pain could have forced him to admit it. "Hmmph! I don't have to sit here and listen to that!" he said, getting up.

"I'm sorry, Ranchan! I didn't mean it! I was just kidding!" Ukyo started panicking.

Shampoo poured as much cuteness as possible into her expression. "Stay? Please?"

Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin would have become peace-loving pacifists if confronted with that look. Ranma had no chance at all. "Eh heh heh. Just kidding." He made no move to sit down though. "I gotta take a dump."

Ukyo groaned. "It's called 'freshening up', Ranchan."

He waved it aside. "What ever." He wandered off.

The Amazon watched the receding bottom, licking her lips. "Nice."

Her companion smiled happily. "Who'd have thought it? The three of us, in an expensive restaurant. A real date." She sighed. "It's a dream come true. "

Shampoo raised an eyebrow. "Your dreams included me?"

Ukyo had the grace to blush. "Well, a cute girl anyway."

"Pervert."

"Hey!" Ukyo said indigently. "Coming from you, that's rich."

Shampoo put an innocent expression on her face, and moved her hand away from it's previous position- poised to grope Ukyo.

A scream from the door made them look up. A man in a green outfit, with a purple hood and cape, had broken down the door. He had a bag, and was gesturing at it. "This is a robbery, people! Money in the bag and no one gets hurt!"

Ukyo just looked at her blue haired companion and groaned. "We just can't get a break today, huh sugar?"

Her reply came telepathically. 'I'll keep arien out of the way. You take out this weirdo.' Ukyo nodded. 'Go silver. We don't need the attention.'

Shampoo dropped to the floor, and crawled her way towards the bathroom. Fortunately, their table was near the back, and the technicolor thief didn't notice. Ukyo smirked. This was going to be fun!

She ducked down, and concentrated. With just a thought, she was back in her steel form. She dissolved into a puddle, and wound her way across the floor. There were no cameras in the room, and all people were staring in fear at the robber. Sure, most of them were well able to afford loosing all the cash and jewelry they had, as you had to be a millionaire to be admitted, but none of them were altogether happy about it.

Ukyo flowed along, spread too thin to be seen by the naked eye. Secarching out cracks that were barely perceptible, she flowed outside. On the sidewalk, she congealed back to a human shape. Her clothes, along with her wallet, were sitting on the floor.

'Hmmm,' she thought to herself. 'Naked is ok, but not for this!' Concentrating, she altered the liquid metal that made up her body. Her legs and arms lost a little definition, while her face, chest, and the rest of her bodily orifices disappeared altogether. Her hair was sucked back into her head, and her fingers and toes became smooth and unblemished.

Now, she resembled nothing as much as she did an outline of a sculpture, or a faceless mannequin. Had she a mouth left, she would have smiled. This was perfect.

In the shop, the thief was announcing himself. "Now, you all can call me the Prowler! Don't worry, I ain't gonna kill any of ya 'less I have 'ta. Just gimme all the money."

Behind him, the Prowler heard a distorted voice. "Now how about you leave? Now!"

The technicolor villain turned around, and jumped. "Who the hell are you!?!" he shrieked. This just wasn't his day. His cape had got caught on a fire hydrant on the way to the restaurant, and now a brand new superhero? Great. And to make matters worse, Prowler was just a guy. Sure, he had a bucket full of gadgets, but no powers of his own. His new adversary, on the other hand, did.

Still, formulas had to be fulfilled. From long time experience in the business, he knew how it went:

SUPERVILLIAN does something illegal

SUPERVILLIAN is confronted by SUPERHERO

SUPERVILLIAN talks trash to SUPERHERO

SUPERHERO kicks SUPERVILLIAN's butt

SUPERHERO gives SUPERVILLIAN to the police

SUPERVILLIAN goes to jail.

Prowler let none of this show on his face, although the mask on his head made that a moot point. Instead, he cackled. "Who dares to challenge me, the Prowler?"

His adversary had obviously never heard of the normal protocol, as it simply reached out, grabbed the Prowler, slung him over its shoulder, and walked out of the restaurant again. The Prowler was helpless, stuck in a vice-like grip. "Hey! Lemme down! Do you know who I am! I deserve a proper defeat! This is cheating!" The crowd in the restaurant sweatdropped.

Ukyo marched down the street, and jumped onto a nearby building when she saw a convenient one. She dumped the complaining supervillian on the roof. He leapt to his feet and moved into a combat position.

"Oh, stop that. You'd just lose, anyway."

"What does that have to do with anything? And who are you?"

Ukyo chuckled. "None of your business. Now stay the hell away from that restaurant for the next two hours, 'k? I WAS on a date!"

Prowler frowned. This wasn't normal. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"

"No."

"Battle me?"

"No."

"Send me to jail?"

"No."

"THEN WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?!"

Ukyo sighed. "I just said. I was on a date. I want to finish up my date, and go home and have a threesome. That requires you to stay away from that restaurant for the next hour or so. Got it?" To remove any notion that she was asking, instead of telling, her entire body grew hundreds of long spikes.

The Prowler gulped. "I got it."

Ukyo smiled again, though she had no mouth to show it. She waved a goodbye, and jumped off the building. Prowler walked over to the edge. "Now how the hell am I gonna get down?"

Back in the restaurant, Ranma walked out of the bathroom, supporting Shampoo. "That's it. Let's leave. I ain't gonna eat anywhere that has ya throwing up for quarter of an hour."

Shampoo nodded. She might have had to stick her fingers down her throat to keep Ranma occupied, but she sure wasn't in the mood for any more dinner. Especially in a place that gets robbed by random supervillains. "Ukyo said she leaving, will meet us at home. You settle the bill, please?"

"Gotcha." So saying, the redhead wandered off to the counter. While he was distracted, Shampoo grabbed Ukyo's clothes and wallet, stuffing them down her cleavage using Hidden Weapons Technique.

* * *

That night, Ukyo decided to try …sleeping… in her metal form. She found she couldn't feel as much in it, but me and Shamp's sure enjoyed it.

The next morning we headed out. Well, we meant to, but Ucchan and Shamps slept in- they were exhausted for some reason. The people from the car shop delivered our new wheels to the outside of the Hotel. Now THAT was fun!

* * *

"Now, you SURE you know how to drive, Ranchan?"

"Of course I do!"

* * *

Well, I'd seen people do it before. I knew which part of the car did what. And I learn really fast. So that was almost as good as having been taught, right?

* * *

"Wrong side of the road! WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!!!"

"That poor sheep!"

"Hey, I've almost got it!"

"Shit! Cops! Pull over!"

"Hell no, this is fun! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKERS!"

* * *

By the end of the day I was driving like a pro. I barely had one small crash a day after that!

The first night we stayed in a motel on the side of the road, but the second day we stayed the night in a small town, I think it was called Sunnydale.

* * *

"Come on, Ucchan. What could go wrong? It's just a short cut across this cemetery."

Ukyo frowned. She couldn't cite any proof, but she just knew it was a bad idea. A cemetery? God only knew what fortune would put there. She had an idea though. "Every time a guy says 'It's a shortcut', they end up taking about two hours extra. And Ranchan,"

"Yes?"

"You just aren't girly enough. Sorry."

Ranma smirked to himself. This would prove how manly he was! "Ok, let's take the long way back then!"

Ukyo and Shampoo grinned to each other. Crisis averted.

In the cemetery, unseen by the Asian trio, a short blond was dusting a dozen vampires. For some reason, she felt cheated. Like she was doing someone else's work.

* * *

The next town we stopped in was called Springville.

It was just as boring as Sunnydale.

About the most exciting thing there was the graffiti on the town sign, saying 'Spooksville'.

* * *

"What's that noise?"

"Uhh… must be someone in the bathroom?"

"Man, he must be having trouble. It sounds like he's roaring!"

Ukyo sweatdropped. "I'll go check outside. Just in case."

Ranma perked up. "Hey! Maybe there's a dragon or something! I haven't seen a real dragon in years!"

Ukyo walked over to the window, and stuck her head out. There was indeed a dragon, of the fire breathing variety. "No. No dragon there. It must be the guy in the next room."

"Where is my treasure!" A loud roar could be heard.

Ukyo sweatdropped. "I think he wants something from the chemist. I'll go get it, to shut him up." She sprinted out the door.

Ranma sweatdropped. "Maybe there IS a dragon. We should go help!"

Shampoo walked over to the window, and looked out. Ukyo was in her metal form, trying to kill the dragon. "No, no dragon. But there is a queue at the chemist, so she take a while." She smirked. "That mean Shampoo have all of you for now." She licked her lips hungrily.

"I WANT MY TREASURE!"

"No thanks," said Ranma. "With that guy making all the noise, I just don't wanna."

* * *

After the disappointment of that town, and the motel, we decided to stay away from civilization for a while. We took a bunch of back roads, and camped a lot.

We had a bit of trouble at one point, though.

* * *

"Look," said Ukyo patiently. "We just want to get to here." She gestured to her map. "That means we have to take a two minute trip through your place.

"Sorry, mam," said a man in military uniform. "This is a restricted area. We have regular live-fire military exercises here, and there are many live shells scattered here. If you just take a short detour through here," he pointed at the map. "And cut across the road here, you shouldn't lose too much time."

Ukyo sighed. "Fine. Thanks for the help." Ranma pulled the car into reverse, knocking over an innocent cactus.

The man in military fatigues sweatdropped. Join the army, they said. Nice and boring, and a chance to kill people, they said. And here he was, keeping young rich girls out of an experimental research facility. There were times when Adrian Sheppard regretted ever hearing the words 'Black Mesa'.

* * *

Time flew, and far too soon the trip was almost over. The day before we arrived in Bayville, we picked up a hitchhiker.

* * *

Rahne Sinclair stood on the side of the road, a sign in her hands. The sign read 'Bayville'.

It had been six months since that fateful day when the world learned of mutants. In the aftermath of that day, when she'd had to watch her friends battle a giant robot in the middle of a crowded city, she'd left the institute.

At the time she'd claimed that her parents had called her home, and everyone had believed her. But she had a different reason for leaving. She was searching for her friend. Sharron. They had been best friends, and now…

The Scottish girl shook her head, before she cried again. There was a green convertible coming, and no one wanted a weepy hitchhiker.

* * *

She was Scottish, and by a weird coincidence she was heading to Bayville as well. She stayed with us at the motel, taking the couch. She seemed really sad, too.

* * *

I walked up the stairs of the hotel, and opened the roof door. Ucchan and Shampoo had drifted off to sleep, but wasn't sleepy. It hit me occasionally, the guilt. Guilt that I didn't deserve anyone; guilt that the person who should be there wasn't.

I opened the door, and heard soft sobs. They quieted as I stepped out, and I walked over to their source. It was that hitchhiker that we picked up, Rahne. She was about 14, in tatty clothes. I'd thought she was running away from home or something.

Now, call it a part of being a guy, but I hate it when girls cry. I knew I had to do something. I walked over and sat down next to her. I gave her a cautious pat on the shoulder, and she clung to me like Akari to a sumo pig. She cried more for a little while, while I patted her shoulder awkwardly.

After a while, she calmed down. I kept patting her, just to be safe. She stopped sniffling, and turned to face me. She was cute, for a 14 year old. Lots of freckles, and light brown hair. She had that red splotichiness that girls get when they cry. I got the idea in my head that now would be the time to say something. "Uh… What's with all the tears?"

She sniffed and looked pathetic. "I… I just miss my best friend, that's all."

I may not understand women, but I was pretty sure that she wasn't telling me everything. "Riiight. Because we all cry when we haven't seen a friend in a while."

"You wouldn't understand! You don't know what it's like to be.." She shut her mouth, on the verge of spitting out the secret, whatever it was.

"Don't I?"

She gave me a funny look. "I didn't even say what it was." She hiccupped.

I sighed. "Kid, I bet what ever happened to you was terrible. But I also bet that I've had worse happen to me."

"Sure."

"No, seriously." She still didn't look convinced. I decided to elaborate. "Remember Ukyo and Shampoo? One's my fiancée, and the other's my wife. Technically."

Her eyes went round at that. "T…TWO!?! GIRLS!?!"

I chuckled. "Yup. I'm one hundered and twenty percent into girls. And just to make matters confusing, I don't think of myself as a lesbian, either."

She looked at me like I'd just grown another head. "Then what DO you call your self?"

"A guy."

"A guy!?!"

I smiled sadly. "Apart from Ukyo and Shampoo, I'd swap anything in the world to be a guy." Sure, I left out the part that I once was a guy. But the rest was true. "If I could give up my life, just for an hour as a guy, I'd take it."

She looked indecisive for a moment. "That's still nothing like what happened to me."

It looked like it was time to bring out the next gun. "And I'm a mutant."

She jumped up like she was struck by lightning. "You.. you are?"

"Yup. They say that it interferes with my metabolism, so I can't have a sex change." Technically true, if you substituted my curse for the operation.

* * *

"And how did you feel when you lost your cure today? Did it feel like everything had been taken from you? That no matter how hard you tried, it would always be out of reach?" Her voice was softer now. She sounded sympathetic, but still getting to a point. "That's how my granddaughter felt when she saw you holding Akane, crying over her."

"So what does that mean?" I asked in a small voice."

"Do you know about mutants, son-in-law?" The hag changed topic on me.

"Yeah, they get free power-ups and look uglier than Pantyhose. Get to the point!"

She sighed. "A mutant has different DNA to a normal person. They also have different DNA to an inactive mutant- one who will awaken their powers eventually, but are still human. Mutants usually are awakened by intense emotional trauma, during their teens."

No. No. No. She couldn't be saying…

"I'm sorry, son-in-law, but just like my granddaughter, you are a mutant. That's what locked you in your present form- your molecular structure changed so much, so suddenly, that the curse thought you were someone completely different. For as long as you are a mutant, the curse will stay locked." She sighed. "If you'd been a male at the time, you would be locked that way."

I caught the glimpse of someone sneaking away, but I couldn't find it in me to care. There are nights I wonder what would have happened, if I'd been less wrapped up in myself. If I'd noticed that snooper. Everything would be different. Everything would be better.

* * *

"Why, are you a mutant hater?" I asked this part suspiciously. She didn't seem like one, but you can never tell.

"No, I'm a… I'm not a hater." She smiled, finally. "In fact, most of my friends are mutants. That's why I'm on the road; I want to see my friends again."

I stood up, and stretched my back. "Tears of joy?"

She finally let out a small giggle. "No, silly." The humor disappeared from her face. "A year ago, I had to move to a private school. I left my best friend behind. I never got a call through to her; but her parents never liked me. So, I went out looking a few months back- about the time the world found out about mutants."

"So what did ya find?"

"Nothing." She slumped. "Not a single thing. Her family moved. No forwarding address. So I got Arcade to look into things. He found out that her folks changed their names, and moved to Australia. There was one strange part, though.

This was like a bad American cop show. "Oh?"

"They left the country, but my friend didn't. She's still in the country, somewhere." She sounded so lost, so sad. It sounded like… me.

"I'll find her for you." The words slipped out before I could think about them, but I had no regrets about saying them. If I could do anything to stop someone feeling like I did, like I do, then I'd do it in a heartbeat. "I know a couple of people- my boss, especially. I can find her for you, I promise."

She smiled sadly. "That would be nice." She didn't have any hope, and maybe that was for the best. But I swore to my self that I'd find her 'friend'.

She gave me her number, and her friend's name, birthday, and a bit about her family. Then we wandered of to our respective beds.

* * *

Authors Notes:

Another chapter. Yay!

I thought that I'd take a moment to explain why I wrote this fic. I love Ranma/X-men crossovers, and I even made a C2 group of them. But two things always bothered me about them.

The first problem I had was that Ranma always had a cool mutant power. The X-men (comic and cartoon) had dozens of people with powers they hated (Rogue, Cyclops), couldn't control (Phoenix, Gambit), or just plain made them freaks (the Morlocks, Beast, Nightcrawler, Archangel).

The second problem I had was that no one took Ranma's curse into account. His boy form and his girl form had no difference in powers. In the X-men verse, even siblings had different powers from each other.

Now, a few fics showed me possible alternatives. Sopchoppy's 'The Hex Factor' had Ranma fall into 'Spring of drowned mutant girl'. Matdeception's 'The Ultimate Antidote' had Ranma with a usefull, but weak, power, and Daval21's 'Another Like Me' had Ranma with downright horrible powers. X23, by Kevin Joe Bays, had the curse make a significant impact, although not the way one would have thought.

I might never have gotten started on this if it weren't for a thread over at Fukufics. We were discussing Ranma/x-men fics, with the idea that he could have a horrible power. I had a thought, and the rest is history.

I decided to write a crossover of my own, taking these two factors into account. Ranma's curse was locked by his mutant gene awakening, and his power is…. well, you'll find out eventually.

I have planned another two Ranma/X-men crossovers. One will be set in the X-men movie verse, where Ranma's forms will have toatally different powers. The other will be set in the Comicverse, where only one of his forms is a mutant.

Another thing I would like to point out is Akane. A disturbingly large amount of people hate Akane, (a large number of whom have only seen the anime, not the manga), and I can understand their desire to avoid pairing her up with Ranma.

What I can't understand is their way of doing it- Akane who loves Ranma (Proved by the reversal Jewel Arc) suddenly hating Ranma, and him leaving. This is a far too accepted crossover mechanic. I like Akane, but accept that I couldn't write a good Ranma/Akane story. So instead of just having her hate him, think of him as a prize, or be in love with Ryoga, I tried it this way. Ranma cares about Akane. (Love? He wouldn't admit it even to himself). But having… something… happen to her frees him up for other pairings, and lets one still stick to the spirit of the original series.


	10. Interlude: Recruiting

Disclamer: I don't own Ranma, or X-men, as usual. I don't own the Avengers, Half Life, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Daredevil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spooksville, Perry Rhodan, or anyone associated with any of them. I just stuck them all in a blender.

Eyes on Me (Dazzler's song) is property of Square-Enix; I stole it from Final Fantasy 8.

…

Note: This does NOT take place at the same time. It is all spread out over the 2 weeks that Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo spent on the road.

* * *

Catseye

"Jeeves. Look at this." Emma was standing inside one of her prison cells. Next to her stood her manservant Jeeves, aka Gateway, and on the floor was a purple panther.

"A collar? Somehow, I doubt she has fleas." He noted dryly.

"Exactly. Earlier, it was sparking out of the damaged part."

His eyes widened. "A tracking device?"

Emma shook her head. "No, none of my cousin's machines detected anything. I think… When I felt her mind, when she was attacking Ranma, she was struggling against her self. Half of her wanted to run and apologize, and the other half of her wanted to kill the intruders. At the time, I thought she was insane. But now… I think that it was controlling her somehow."

It is generally considered bad form for menservants to demonstrate much emotion around their employers. Jeeves took his duties most seriously. So it marked the seriousness of the situation that he spoke his next words. "Bugger me sideways! Mind control!"

Emma would have chuckled, had she not agreed. "Indeed. My cousin is on route now, to remove the wretched device safely. In the mean time, I shall attempt to communicate with her telepathically."

Jeeves nodded, and stood still. He was experienced enough in his mistress's telepathy to know that, for a difficult job like this, she needed quiet to concentrate.

Emma reached out, into the unconscious mind of the slumbering cat. She sunk deeper and deeper. She could see that her mind was fragmented. Between the damaged collar, and the girl's own animal instincts, there were two personalities in the body, instead of one.

The first looked like a strange combination of feline and human. Different from the anime cat girl, however, it seemed wild. Untamed. And ugly. The face was contorted into a hideous snout, the fur was matted and the head hair was knotted and greasy. Her teeth were yellow and jiggered. Her fingers were stubby, and her feet were deformed.

The other personality was the polar opposite of the first. She had long, luxurious hair. Her nails were perfect, and she wore designer clothes. And she looked completely human.

Emma looked at them. "Who are you?" she addressed them both.

The cat-creature answered "Catseye."

The human girl answered "Sharon Smith."

"Do you know what is happening?"

"No.

"No."

Emma explained. "You are injured. Your body was under some form of mind-control, and it was damaged. That is why you two are separate."

"Mind control?! You have to sto.." The human half spoke, only to be interrupted by a red net coming down on top of her.

Emma's astral form's eyes widened. The device even effected her on this level!?! "I will. As we speak, someone is coming to take care of it."

The cat half hissed. "Why should we trust you?"

The White Queen pondered this for a moment. It seemed like the human half was the trusting one, while the feline half was feral and savage. "Because I want you to work for me, and that can't happen with that collar on."

The beast's eyes darkened at the mention of a collar. "NO COLLARS!"

Emma reached over and patted the beast on the head. "I promise. No more collars."

In the room, Jeeves watched Emma's eyes open. "Success, ma'am?"

The white woman shook her head. "That collar was interfering. On top of that, her unconscious mind was odd. She had split her human and her feline side from each other. I did, however, manage to ascertain that they didn't do much long-term damage. It was all the collar. No lingering brainwashing to worry about."

* * *

Longshot

In a lonely desert, no crickets chirped. The occasional crow screeched, and the wind blew, but for the most part it was silence. The desert was a place of peace.

'Bang! Bang! Ratatatatatatatatatta…. BOOM!'

Usually.

When not disturbed by a firefight and a car chase, anyway.

At the moment, a lone man on a motorbike was chasing a jeep. In the front, a girl sat, bound and gagged. Tears leaked out her eyes as she watched hero through the wing mirror. The diver only laughed at her plight, cheering his companions in the back seat on as they shot at the lone biker.

The biker veered off to the right, accelerating towards a rocky outcropping. The men in the car laughed as the hero apparently gave up his chase. The girl slumped forward, in despair.

The hero accelerated, pushing his bike to the limit. He rode his bike up the rocky slope, jumping off and landing on the front of the car, denting it, before his momentum carried him off. The car slid around and around, crashing into a wall. The girl, the only one buckled in, was fine. Her hijackers were all unconscious.

Her hero got off the bike, and she looked at his masked visage, love in her eyes. "My hero," she said, nibbling her lower lip. "Can I see the man who saved me?"

"CUT!!"

Almost out of nowhere, another man appeared, dressed identically as the hero. "Thanks, buddy."

The newcomer assumed the position, while the first man walked off, and took off his helmet. He had long, blond hair and a scar underneath his eye. A pudgy man came running up to him.

"Longshot, baby! You were great! Fabulous! Flawless!"

Longshot smiled at him. It was an innocent, slightly naive smile, but heartfelt. "Thanks, Jim."

Jim grinned at his discovery. He had found Longshot about a year and a half previously, and was one of the few who knew he was a mutant. It was a good partnership; at least from his point of view- he got the prestige of being known as the manager of the greatest stunt-double in the movie business, and lots of money, while Longshot had his help in recovering his past. Sure, he hadn't had any success on that front, but Longshot didn't seem to care.

"Actually, buddy, you got a visitor." Jim rubbed his hands together. "She's rich, and HOT! She just showed up a few minutes ago asking for you."

"I wonder what she wants," mused Longshot. "Do you think she knows about me past?"

"Sure, anything's possible. Come on, you don't wanna keep a lady this classy waiting." He half dragged Longshot towards one of the tents they were based in while they filmed on the desert.

Longshot stumbled through the tent entrance, and met the woman his manager was talking about. His first thoughts were of concern. "Hello, miss. Aren't you cold?"

In front of him sat a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, and a white leather mini-skirt/tube top combo, with white leather thigh-high boots. She smiled at him. "So, I hear your reputation is accurate, hmm?"

With slight confusion, he had to ask. "What reputation?"

She smiled at his naïveté. "Never mind. My name is Emma Frost."

He stuck his hand forward, like Jim taught him. "Hi. I'm Longshot."

Emma shook his hand politely. "Or are you?"

Longshot looked hopeful. "Do you know who I am?"

Emma shook her head. "No, but I have heard about you. The man who appeared from nowhere a year and a half ago, with no memories, no clothes, and nothing to tell where you cam from apart from your scar, and your mutant abilities."

"Oh." He sounded sad. He also didn't notice that she knew he was a mutant.

"There IS good news, though." He looked up at the white woman. "I'm a mutant- a telepath. Also, I'm well connected in the world. I can find out who you are, who your family are, if you help me."

He smiled. Luck was on his side. "What do you want need?"

* * *

Dazzler

In a grungy bar, outside of Los Angles, a voce could be heard singing. The quality was far above the norm for the bar, and all were enjoying it. A young blond girl, no more than 15, was singing her heart out.

"Darling, so there you are

With that look on your face

As if you're never hurt

As if you're never down

Shall I be the one for you

Who pinches you softly but sure

If frown is shown then I will know

that you are no dreamer"

The crowed erupted into cheers as she bowed. "Thank you, thank you. I'm the Dazzler, and I'm gonna be here for the week." There was a fresh wave of cheering. The blond singer stepped merrily offstage.

Alison Blaire, as the young singer was usually known, gave a smile to the manager of the bar. "Good enough?" A smirk was absent from her face, but not her voice.

The manager took a moment to ogle her underage bosom. "Yeah, great, blondie."

"My money." She held her hand out expectantly.

He chuckled. "That's not how it works, little girl. You begged ME to do this performance. You wanna sing for the week, I'll pay you for that. But today was a test run."

Alison seethed. "I sung for over five hours! I bet this hole has never been more packed than tonight! How can you not pay me? I need that money." The last was said nearly in tears.

The manager laughed. "Well, you could work it off…" He stared suggestively at her body, making her feel dirty.

Alison looked down. Should she do it? Was it worth it? She debated with herself. She needed that money. With it, she'd be able to buy a bus ticket to the middle of LA, and get the attention of the executives at the recording studios. What was one small night for her future?

A silky, feminine voice with an English accent echoed inside her head. 'Is it really worth sacrificing your ideals for money? Is it ok to do what's easy, instead of what's right?'

Alison looked up, at the manager. "Hell no, perv. If you don't want to give me what's mine, I'll go somewhere else. I bet the other bars heard of how good I was!" She spun on her heals and walked out of the bar.

Waiting for her was a blond woman, in a white leather business suit. "That was a wise decision you made in there."

With a start, Alison realized it was the voice from her head earlier. "What do you want?"

"My name is Emma Frost. And I have an offer for you."

* * *

Ivan

Bishop sat on a chair, watching reruns of 'The Nanny'. Also in the room was Sage, working on the computer, and the green two-headed man, Ivan Ivanovich Goratschin.

"Excuse me," said Tessa from a corner. "But I was wondering. Which of you is Ivan, and what is the other one of you called?"

Bishop smirked. "Bishop, remember?"

Sage glowered. "The twins, Bishop."

One of the heads turned around from the TV to face her. "I'm the oldest, Ivan. The squirt over here is Ivanovich." One of their arms promptly smacked the elder in the head.

Sage frowned slightly. "In Russia, Ivanovitch is simply a middle name, meaning 'Son of Ivan.' How does that work in your case?"

The elder head groaned. "Our mom died giving birth. Before she saw us, she named us, and died too soon after to change it. She hadn't realized that we were conjoined twins. And Dad wanted to stick with the name, since it was her last words. We had to find a different name each, and it just happened that way."

Sage nodded. "Interesting. Were you always green, as well as two headed?"

The younger head turned around now. "No, we just woke up that way a year or so ago."

* * *

Ms Marvel

"Dam it Matt, the pigs 'ill catch us if we don't hurry," said a masked man, from inside a darkened bank.

His companion growled. "No names, _Rex_. I can't be sure that those cameras aren't working. Besides, we're almost finished." He continued franticly stuffing money in his bag.

The two were inside a Seattle bank, past midnight. They weren't there for any legal reason, either.

"Besides, even if the cops do come, we're prepared. Pierce set us up good." The thieving duo shared a chuckle. Their benefactor had indeed prepared them for the cops. All they had to do in return was to rob the bank, and retrieve a certain item from a deposit box.

The loud call of police sirens halted the thieves in the act. "Shit. Get ready."

Outside the bank, a trio of police cars pulled up. The cops scrambled out, and drew their weapons. "Come out with your hands up! This is the police!"

There was a tense moment, as they waited. Then they heard laughter, and one balaclava-clad man emerged from the bank. He had his arms up in the air. He walked up to the front steps. "Well, ya got me." There was a definite amused tone to his voice.

The forward-most policeman called out. "Lie down on the ground, and put your hands behind your head!"

The man smirked behind his balaclava. Not that the cops noticed. "Sure." Slowly, keeping his arms straight, he lowered his arms. When they were pointing at the cars, he laughed again. "Or NOT!" His right hand fell off, revealing a gun barrel protruding from his arm. With a maniacal laugh, gunfire poured out.

The front-most cop was the first to die, followed shortly by his partner. The rest took cover behind their cars. The senior officer grabbed his radio. "We need backup! Thieves are armed and hostile! Officers down!"

A feminine voice called out. "Backup's here! You call an ambulance."

Everyone looked up. There was a girl, floating in mid-air. She was wearing black elbow length gloves, and black thigh-high boots. A red sash was tied around what looked like a black one-piece swimsuit. A yellow lightning bolt stretched from neck to waist. A stylized black domino mask covered her eyes, and her long blond hair blew behind her.

The cops called out at the same time as the gun-armed (literally) thief. "Ms Marvel!"

"Thanks for the intro, boys," she called out, before flying at the gunman (again, literally). The man managed to get off a few bullets, which all bounced ineffectively off her, before she closed the distance and, grabbing the gun-arm in one hand, crushed it.

One of the younger cops called out enthusiastically, "Ha! Ms Marvel's bullet proof, idiot! And she's stronger than a truck! You might as well just give up now!"

Ms Marvel made it a moot point by knocking the gunman unconscious. She smirked. "One down. Lets see if you had any more friends in here." She floated in to the darkened bank.

A slight buzzing noise was all the warning the superheroine had, before a purple glowing blade came at her. It was sufficient, though, as she managed to dodge the blade.

She backed up, and took a moment to survey the situation. The man, similarly to his companion outside, had a weapon in place of his right arm. Unlike the other criminal, his was a half-meter purple energy blade, and his right eye was nothing but a gray lens.

'Cyborgs, huh?' Ms Marvel thought to her self. 'Not the first I've seen recently, but they keep getting better.'

He lunged towards her, and she leapt into the air, untroubled by a minor concept like gravity. The purple blade sunk into the floor with no resistance. The thief noticed her shocked stare. "Like it?" he taunted. "This baby'll cut though anything. Not even your bullet-proof hide 'ill stop it!"

Ms Marvel smirked, and rose higher. "Mabey. But then again, I'm not gonna touch you!" She punched the ceiling. The cyborg had only a moment to look shocked as it collapsed on the pair of them.

Half an hour later, Ms Marvel was sitting on a rooftop, shaking plaster out of her hair. 'Next time, I need to think a little longer,' she thought ruefully. The bank was happy, at least- they were insured against the destruction, and had almost certainly claimed more than it was worth.

"You know, that wasn't particularly subtle. Couldn't you have flown behind him?" An English accented voice came from behind her. Marvel spun around and raised her fists.

"No need for that, dear. I'm on your side in this." The speaker was a blond, blue-eyed woman in a white business suit.

"In what?" Asked the other blond.

"Those cyborgs wont be the last. I knew the man who made them- his fanaticism for the 'art' of making cyorgs is only matched by his hatred of mutants. He will only keep sending them after you, in larger and larger amounts, with better upgrades."

Marvel frowned. "How do you know this?"

Her reply formed in her mind. 'I know a lot, Carol. And I'd like to make you an offer. I'm recruiting a mutant team. One like the X-men, but with a slightly more active approach to things. I want you on it.'

"What's in it for me?"

"A team of people to help you take down the man who's making these cyborgs, and a nice paycheck."

Ms Marvel, aka Carol Denvers eyes shone at the mention of money. "Where do I sign up?"

* * *

Bishop

Lucas Bishop. A name that inspired respect in all of his old unit. A name that inspired fear in those that tried to measure up against the virtual mountain of muscle. A name that was currently associated with moving boxes.

Their new home was impressive. Three stories, a huge estate, more rooms than you could shake a stick at. A underground facility full of gadgets, some of questionable origin, some not from this earth. At least, that what Sage had hinted.

Speaking of that woman, where was she? Where were any of them? Sage, Alison, Emma, Sharon, and Carol had disappeared into thin air. That left Bishop, Ivan, Jeeves and Longshot to move all the boxes. Jeeves was like friken 80! Carol could chuck a car around, but could she help? No!

Ivan, Ivanovich and Jeeves sighed at Bishop's grumbling, while Longshot remained cheerfully oblivious.

Moving in was a pesky business, but it had to be done. Ranma (and by god was she ever hot!) Shampoo (hot but bitchy) and Ukyo (not to bad, but nowhere near the other two) were due in two days. That meant a lot of stuff had to be moved, quickly. The girls had all disappeared fairly quickly, muttering about curtains and paint and carpeting.

But while he grumbled, Lucas Bishop was not a stupid man. He had no intentions of trying to drag some of the girls down to help. He knew better than to get between a woman and her interior decoration.

* * *

Mercury

Rhane gazed into the bathroom mirror, examining her teeth. Not for whiteness, like a normal person, but for humanity. Ever since that day where she'd turned into a wolf for the first time, she'd had a fear of turning into a wolf forever. Not that she was ashamed of being a mutant, but she was afraid of loosing her humanity. She was hardly alone in that fear; Hank McCoy and Logan (Beast and Wolverine) had similar fears. But it was still nice to have a little confirmation every now and again.

Behind her she heard one of the Asian girls- Ukyo. She got out her toothbrush and stood next to Rahne, brushing her teeth. "Got something stuck there, sugar?"

Rahne blushed, realizing how long she had spent gazing. "No, just checking."

"Uh huh." Ukyo worked her own teeth over quickly. "Shure." She spat into the sink. "Anyway. What kept you and Rancha- Ranma up so late last night?"

"We were talking. I thought you two were asleep?"

Ukyo picked up a short handled metal spatula. "I can't sleep when h-she leaves the bed."

The near slip of the tongue didn't go unnoticed. 'So she wasn't making it up about wanting to have a sex change,' Rhane mused. "Oh. How does it work, anyway?" Instantly she regretted bringing it up. "You and Shampoo, and Ranma?"

Ukyo looked at her mini-spatula. "It… its hard to explain. Once, the two of us, and a couple of other girls, were fighting over her. One girl was winning, no matter how much she claimed she didn't love Ranma." Ukyo smiled wistfully. "They almost got married, but the rest of us bombed their wedding."

Rhane's eyes bugged out. "You BOMBED their WEDDING?!?"

Ukyo chuckled. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." She sighed. "But looking back, everything bad started there."

Rahne stayed silent. She could tell that Ukyo wanted to say it in her own time.

"…The girl's name was Akane. She was a real tomboy. She… she had a lot of guys interested in her. One was interested in Ranma as well." Ukyo smirked. "Actually, he obsessed over the both of them. Claimed to love them both. Bought pictures of them every day."

There was a brief pause. "But… something happened. To Akane. Ranma… he wasn't the same. Almost committed seppuku." She pantomimed the disemboweling cut. "But Shampoo and I caught up to her. Begged her to stay with us. We figured, better to share the pie, than to have it throw itself in the rubbish bin." She smirked at her terrible analogy.

"And you two just share?" That was more than a little confusing to the Scottish girl.

Ukyo's eyes lost focus. "…no. It's not that easy. I wish it were. We get jealous a lot. But… even sharing with a girl who used to be my enemy, even after something happened to ..that girl… that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, this has been the happiest time of my life. I wouldn't go back for anything." Ukyo smiled contentedly. "Waking up to her beautiful face every morning… having her cuddle up to me at night… even little things like eating our meals together. What is a little sharing compared to all that?" She looked out the window to the car, where Ranma and Shampoo were getting ready to leave. The car was noticeably dented around the front, and there was a suspicious amount of sheep wool caught behind the license plate. Shampoo was bent forward, packing, pointing her rear at the window. The breeze flipped her short dress up briefly, causing Ukyo to drool a little. "And hey, she is pretty hot." Rhane face faulted.

* * *

An unusually small chapter, but much quicker than normal. Don't get used to it.

Um. What needs saying. Every one of those names was featured in the marvel universe. Ms Marvel, Longshot and Dazzler had their own comics, before joining the X-men (or in Ms Marvel's case, the Avengers). In comic cannon, Catseye and Mercury were Hellions, Longshot, Dazzler, Bishop and Emma were X-men. Ivan came from the Perry Rhodan series. Gateway was an aboriginal who used his mystic powers to make portals for who ever required them.

It had been brought to my attention that I'm having too much fun drawing out the revealing of Ranma's power. Don't worry, I promise to get there in the next chapter or two.

Anyone else with an idea or a question (unrelated to Ranma's powers, or what happened to Akane), please post them as reviews. Some of my best ideas came from the reviews you guys leave, and perhaps the speed of this chapter as well.

For those who also have decent knowledge of the X-men comicverse, a few warnings. Throw everything you know about Ms Marvel out the window for the purposes of this fic. All she has in common with her comic counterpart is her name and her powers.


	11. Chapter 9: Entering and Breaking

Disclamer: I don't own Ranma, or X-men, as usual. I don't own the Avengers, Half Life, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Daredevil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spooksville, Perry Rhodan, or anyone associated with any of them. I just stuck them all in a blender.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, thanks are due to **J. St.C. Patrick** for spellchecking. Judging from how many he found, I'm getting better at spelling!

* * *

The car sounded a little sick as I drove it along the outskirts of Bayville in the late evening. I wasn't sure why, it wasn't like my driving was bad or anything. But rich people cars probably needed tune ups, and we hadn't bothered with that on the road.

Ucchan and Shamps were sleeping, Shampoo on the back seat like a c-c-c-c her old cursed form, and Ucchan lying against me. For some reason, they kept getting stressed out on this holiday. I wasn't too sure why, but it was probably a girl thing. After all, I hadn't seen anything exciting on the trip. Not even a single monster, martial artist or supervillian. Not even in New York. A little disappointing, to be sure.

Rahne had been dropped off in town, saying she'd rather walk home. It was just the three of us, one car, and all the clothes that my girls had picked up on the way. My girls. Sounded warm.

"Mansion, mansion, mansion. This is the right road, and I'm looking for a mansion." I chatted idly to myself. It was a little hard to see, it being nine in the evening, but this was far enough out of town that there weren't many houses at all.

Next to me, Ucchan stirred. "Hmmm? 'we there yet, hon?"

I smiled tenderly, and adjusted my shoulder so she'd be more comfortable. "I think I see it up ahead."

And I was right. It was three stories tall, judging from the lights I could see. There was a huge driveway, at least two hundred meters. If I hadn't been on the look out, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. The grounds looked nice, lots of trees and bushes.

I pulled up to the gate, and it opened on its own. We drove down the gravel road, the shaking waking Shampoo up. "Hey, sleepyhead. We're home." Home. It had a nice ring to it. I hadn't been able to call a place Home before, except for the Tendo's place, and even there we were guests. Here… it looked like it was gonna be great.

We pulled up at the house, and I carried Ucchan in. Shampoo leaned heavily on me, groping me accidentally. She had a sleepy, lecherous smile on her face, so I revised my opinion on how accidental it was.

The door opened, and Jeeves welcomed us in. The lateness of the hour didn't seem to affect him, still clean and pressed as normal. "May I show you your rooms, Ranma-sama?" he asked. I nodded, and the four of us went on up.

Our room was on the third floor, along with Emma's and Tessa's. Jeeves opened the door for us, and we wandered in.

The room was like a small house! It was like the one from the Hotel, but without the kitchen. It had a huge bedroom, a walk-in closet (I suspected that Shampoo might explode with joy when she was awake enough to notice), a spa, and a living room. The bed was massive, and ready for us. I guided Shampoo in, gently let Ucchan down, and crawled in between them.

* * *

Rahne bounded along the streets, her paws expertly avoiding the glass that sprinkled the pavement. She couldn't help herself, and let loose a triumphant bark. Here she was. Bayville. The one place that she had felt truly accepted. A place that had people like her.

Her running lasted half an hour, taking her to the gates of the Xavier Institute For Gifted Youngsters. She debated the wisdom of trying the intercom, but decided against it. No one would be up. Similarly, just jumping over the walls was out. The security system was top notch, and she didn't want to get everyone woken up for battle just to say 'hi'.

Shrugging in a very canine fashion, she curled up in a ball right outside the gates. She'd wander back in tomorrow.

* * *

"She is mine, now. Like she always was."

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH" I screamed, sitting up. I my eyes darted around the room, and found my fiancée and my wife in bed, looking confused. I glomped them both at the same time.

Shampoo looked surprised, and Ucchan looked pleased. I just held them close, shivering from my dream. I wasn't gonna lose anyone important to me. Not again.

This tender moment was interrupted by the door imploding under the force of ninety kilograms of black muscle. Bishop barreled through our lounge into our bedroom, holding a shotgun.

By reflex, I jumped out of bed and looked around. "Bishop, what's happening?" He just sunk to the floor with a nosebleed. I looked around for help, which came in the form of Sage (still in leather), and Emma (who's casual clothes were, surprise, white).

"Who screamed?" asked Sage.

I blushed. "Uh… I kinda had a nightmare." Emma and Sage rolled their eyes. To distract them, I gestured to the unconscious body on the floor. "But what happened to Bishop?"

From behind me, I heard Ukyo growling. Shampoo threw a robe at me, hitting me on the head. "Arien, that OURS to see!"

I looked down, and realized that all I was naked. I 'eep'ed and quickly wrapped myself in the robe. "Anyway. You can all leave now." They got the hint, and shuffled out. Sage dragged Bishop after her, muttering darkly.

Ucchan grabbed me in a big hug. Since she's so much taller than my curse form, I got a face full of cleavage. "Was it the dream again, sugar?" I nodded, at least as much as my position would allow. I could hear Shampoo sigh, and she came over to join in the hug.

This time we weren't interrupted by ex-military mutants, and finished in our own time. "Thanks." I said. We had a moment of silence. Then my stomach rumbled. "Lets get some food." They just rolled their eyes.

* * *

Logan was a man of many mysteries, even to himself. No one knew where he came from; no one knew WHY he didn't know. Few knew why he went for long motorcycle rides. Most blamed it on his 'Lone Wolf' personality, some calling it a byproduct of the feral nature of his mutation. The truth was much simpler:

He wanted booze.

In a house filled with super powered teenagers, he needed a little something to get him through the day. And the sleeping habits of the teenager didn't involve hours before nine AM, usually. The early morning was the perfect time to find a good, stiff drink or ten.

As he pulled up to the gates, the mutant noticed something odd. A large dog, or possibly a wolf, sleeping in front of the gate. Logan sighed, and got off his bike. He walked up to the dog, noticed an oddly familiar scent. He took off his helmet, and took a sniff. It was definitely familiar. It smelled like... "Rahne?!?"

The sleeping wolf awoke instantly, and jumped into Logan's arms, transforming into a human girl with a lot of freckles. "Mr Logan!" She gave him a hug that would have been painful to someone without an armor-plated skeleton. He hugged her back. They had been fairly close before she left. As the only two people in the mansion who had feral mutations, they understood each other better than most.

After a long moment, he put her down again. "How ya been, kiddo?"

She grinned up at him. "Not too bad. How's things been around here?"

He snorted. "Exciting. Loud. Ya missed a lot of action."

The Scottish girl laughed nervously. "Yeah, I heard about that apocalypse thing on the news. Did any one get hurt?"

"Naahh. Just a little banged up. Come on, let's get inside." He got back on his bike, and turned around. Rahne hopped up behind him.

Logan sighed to himself. So much for that beer run.

* * *

I was right- Shampoo went loony over the walk-in closet. Ukyo was pleased, but she's too practical to get too excited. The discovery of the spa earned some suggestive looks too. In the end, me and Ucchan got dressed, and headed down. Shampoo was still trying to figure out what to wear.

By my finely honed senses (my food radar) I managed to lead us to the kitchen. Jeeves was cheerfully preparing pancakes, and I helped myself to some. Ucchan sniffed, and hunted down some cereal- that girl really despises pancakes, pizza, and any other food that's round, flat, and not Okonomiyaki.

The sounds of a TV lead us to the lounge, where Bishop and Sage were drinking coffee, and Emma was reading a paper. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that we were, in fact, a group of mutants who had plans to keep the world safe, and the money to back those plans up.

"Hey. Where's Ivan and, uh, Ivan?" I asked, announcing my presence in the room. Emma looked up from her paper.

"They are in a hotel, in New York, along with the rest of your Hellions."

"Hellions..." I spent a moment trying to remember. "Right, the people I'm gonna train. How many are there?"

She smiled proudly. "Ivan and Ivanovitch, Bishop, Alison, Carol, Longshot, Sharon, and Ukyo. Six, or eight, depending on how many people you count the twins as and how much training your fiancée needs."

I laughed. "Ucchan doesn't need any training from me- she's the best with a weapon I've ever seen." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her blush. "But why aren't they here? Why keep them all in New York?"

Emma got up from her paper, and wandered towards the stairs. I followed. "There is a machine that the x-men own- it's called Cerebro. It lets the user find mutants. This close to them, any large group of mutants would be spotted quickly. Even the six of us will be found by the end of the week. If they don't know we're here, then we have a distinct tactical advantage."

I pondered that for a minute. "So we destroy it?" I could do that. I'm good at breaking stuff.

She shook her head, with a slight sigh of exasperation. "No, that wouldn't work. Not only would that alert them to us, but they'd fix it easily enough, and look even harder. What we need is a copy of the blueprints. If we had those, I know someone who's good with machinery. He could build something to hide us from it."

"So I break in, steal the blueprints, and then this guy of yours can take care of the rest?"

She gave me a look. "You want to go, ALONE, into a building filled with powerful mutants, a state of the art security system, so that you can steal something? Are you mad?!?"

I huffed, and crossed my arms. "Well, what was your plan?"

She looked smugly at me. "Shampoo, though she can't control the power, can use shadows to teleport anywhere. Even Gateway requires a photo of a place to teleport there. With a few months training, she can slip in and take the plans. She would only be there for a couple of minutes."

"Yeah... I like my plan better," I said cockily. "My way will take about half an hour, not months."

Emma looked ticked. "They have the most powerful telepath in the world there. A man with the greatest healing factor known to man, and unbreakable claws. A woman who can control the weather, can call tornados and lightning on a whim. A super-genius, a girl who can take you out with just a single touch, a boy who can teleport to you instantly, a girl who can make all your punches pass right through her. What do you say to that?"

"I've fought against worse odds, Emma." I said quietly, my mind drifting to that fateful battle. Jusendo... A whole tribe of Phoenix people, who were many times stronger than a normal man, who could fly, who had claws on their hands and feet. And then, tired from battling them, half drowned and half frozen, I had taken on Saffron. "Much worse."

I think something in my voice got to her, because she went quiet. "If you want to, it's your decision. You are the Knight. That means for everything that involves fighting, it's up to you."

I smiled at her. "Thanks, Emma. I know my limitations. I can do this." I thought for a moment. "Are these blueprints on a computer? I'm not so good with computers." I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.

The White Queen shook her head in amusement. "I'm sure Tessa can come up with something. She's unparalleled when it comes to computers."

Behind me, I felt Ucchan walk up. I turned around, and she leaned in for a deep, passionate kiss. "Mmmm. What have you two been talking about?"

"Your fiancée was just finished convincing me that she should sneak into the X-mansion, and steal some blueprints," Emma related.

"Ahh. Hey, Ranchan," Ucchan started. "Shampoo and I want to go shopping. Be ready in an hour."

"Yes dear," I groaned. Going shopping is never fun, and on our trip I learned just how terrible it can be with Shamps. That woman has more stamina than Ryoga! Still, at least the company would be good.

* * *

'Emma.' The White Queen heard the voice of Shampoo in her head.

'Have you been practising?' She asked with approval. Her signal was much steadier than it had been before they left.

'Yep,' Shampoo returned with pride. 'I was wondering- if more mutants here increases our risk of detection, why are we all here?'

Emma smiled internally. Shampoo didn't miss anything. 'Jeeves is here to render the house habitable, Sage is outfitting the basement computers, I am working on establishing myself into Bayville's society.'

'And Bishop?' The Amazon's tone was decidedly frosty.

Emma pursed her lips. 'He said it was because it wasn't safe for two women and an old man to live alone.'

'More like he wants a piece of my husband,' growled Shampoo. 'You should have seen the way he was looking at her.'

'Indeed,' agreed the blond. 'He was broadcasting loud and clear.'

Emma felt Shampoo leave her mind, and stalk off. She shook her head. It was one thing to hear about the way people fell for Ranma, but to see it in action? Hell, she had caught herself giving the red-head a good leer on two occasions now, and she wasn't even into women! It was almost enough to make her think that it was some mutant power, but Ranma had been attracting women (and men) like insects to a light bulb long before her mutant gene activated.

* * *

Logan laughed as Rahne was buried under a pile of overexcited teenagers. First, naturally, was Kitty Pride (Shaddowcat), followed by Tabitha Smith (Boom Boom), Amara Aquilla (Magma), Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler), and Jamie Madrox (Multiple). More would have joined in, but Kurt had landed on Jamie and there were now a dozen Jamie's crowding around the Scottish mutant.

The rest of the mansion stood, beaming, while the Professor, Logan, Hank (Beast) and Ororo (Storm) smiled paternally (or maternally, in Storm's case). The institute was more than a school for those who lived there; it was a home. They were a family. One of their own was back.

"Like, wow! When did you come back!? Why didn't you call!? Are you staying!? Did you meet any cute boys!?" Kitty babbled excitedly.

Rahne giggled at Kitty's antics. "I just got back last night, but I didn't wanna wake anyone up, so I slept outside. So, what have you guys been up to, huh?"

Kitty positively glowed with gossip. "The Brotherhood tried to turn good. Wanda tried to hunt down Magneto, but gave up. Logan found a long lost daughter-"

"Clone," Logan hastily interrupted. "Not daughter."

"Clone, sorry. I was confused with the Professer's son, Lucas. Rogue was kidnapped by her new boyfriend, Gambit-"

"Ahh am NOT going out with the swamp-rat!" Yelled the gothic Rogue. Everyone in the room gave her a knowing glance. "At least ahh wasn't the one with an imaginary friend!"

"She was real! She's coming here next term!"

Scot Summers, who was also known as Cyclops, took a look at the bugged-out expression on Rahne's face and elaborated. "She was a telepathic mutant, and was trying to call for help. She had been trapped in the bottom of a mine for years, and was haunting people's dreams, trying to get someone to get her out. The problem was that she was doing this unconsciously; she actually didn't know she was trapped."

Jean Grey, one of the few mutants at the institute without a code name, laughed. "And of course, there was that whole Apocalypse business."

Ororo raised her voice. "As wonderful as it is to have Rahne back, you're all about to be late for school."

There was a sudden frenzy of people grabbing bags and lunches, and the house was quickly deserted except for the adults and Rahne.

* * *

"Thank you, and have a nice day," The salesman said, as the three of us left.

"Cool. Now we have all the furniture we need," I said happily. Shampoo (and, to a lesser extent, Ucchan) had been cruising the furniture stores all morning for things to fill up our room with. We were now the proud possessors of three chests of drawers, one of those girly desk-with-a-mirror things, a new bed (even though the one we had used the night before was fine), three bookshelves, a TV cabinet and a collection of lamps. I was just glad that the store delivered. I woulda hated to carry that around all day. My car was at a local mechanic's, who had muttered darkly upon seeing it. It wasn't that bad- a couple of small scratches, tops.

"Uh uh, Ranchan, we aren't finished yet," my fiancée smirked. "We still need a TV, some art to decorate the walls, and clothes. Lots and lots of clothes." I shivered.

"Actually, we need to do something first," I said carefully. "There was this shop I wanted to visit."

Shampoo literally glowed with pleasure at the idea that I was beginning to like shopping, and agreed instantly. We wandered around for a little while, before I found the place.

"Uh. Arien. Are you lost?" The Amazon was confused. With good reason; the shop had no sign, and all the windows were covered up with newspaper. On the door was a sign that read 'Coming soon.'

I smirked. "No." I pulled a key from my pocket and unlocked the door, gesturing for my girls to come in.

They looked around for a moment, dumbstruck. There were several tables, a stack of chairs in one corner, and a collection of bar stools in another. A counter sat in front of a door, leading out towards the back. "Ranchan... is this what I think it is!?!"

"Yup. One cafe; power and water connected, just awaiting a pair of chefs to decorate the place and order equipment." I must have done well - Both Shampoo and Ucchan glomped me so hard I felt like Akari must feel with Ryoga.

Ucchan had tears in her eyes. "For me?"

"Nahh. For us." I couldn't find the words to say what I wanted to. That I knew how much running her shop meant to her, that I wanted to be a part of that, that I wanted to eat her Okonomiyaki every day. That I knew what her dream was, and I wanted to make it a reality. But then again, I didn't need to.

My cute fiancée sniffed. "That extra stuff-" She pointed at some extra grills, elements, and a pair of deep fryers. "Is that from the previous owners?"

I smiled tenderly at Shampoo, who was beginning to look left out. "No, it used to be a clothes shop. That was all put in especially for a certain someone to cook traditional Chinese food." She glomped me even harder.

"Like we talk about on the ship- our own restaurant!"

"Yeah. There's even a small bedroom upstairs for us to stay in when we wanna get out of the mansion for a while."

"...you remembered." Ucchan's voice was little more than a whisper. Back when we were kids, she had talked about opening her own shop. She had dreamed about having a house, but also having a room at the shop for busy days. That, and she liked the idea of waking up to the smell of Okonomiyaki.

Our hug stopped, and they moved apart. I stood there, looking lost, when Shampoo closed the door. Ucchan then tackled me, pulling off my shirt and almost destroying it in the process. Shampoo started wiggling out of her dress. "What the!?"

"Hush, sugar. I'm gonna show you just how grateful I am!"

Damn. How could I have forgotten how much Okonomiyaki put her in the mood? I just hoped I'd be able to walk straight when she finished.

* * *

Rogue fumed. Not for any particular reason, other than the normal problem of not being able to touch anyone without killing them. She just habitually fumed.

Despite the fact that it was a school day, she was wandering around the town, finally ending up where her favourite store used to be. Two weeks previously, it had closed up over night. They were going to set up a new store a couple of blocks away, but according to the signs they had posted it would be almost a month before they were ready to open their doors again.

She wandered up to the door, trying to peer in. What she saw gave her a blush and a nose bleed. The dialogue only made it worse.

"Harder! Harder! ARIEEEEEEEEN!!"

"With squid! With squid! RANCHAAAAAN!!"

* * *

"We're home!" I shouted triumphantly that evening. "Any one around?"

Bishop walked into the hall. "Tessa's busy programming on the basement computer and Jeeves is making dinner. Need a hand carrying that?"

I smiled at him- it was a pretty kind offer, considering that we'd barely spoken to each other so far. "Hey, thanks." I passed him most of the bags I was carrying, and we wandered up towards the third floor. I dumped my bags on the floor, and they spilled all over the floor. I caught Bishop blushing as he saw the contents of one bag. As to what was in it... let's just say that if Happosai saw me in any of it, his head would explode. Or he'd get a charge big enough to fight the Hulk, Iron Man and the Thing at the same time.

"Um... that... uh... you see... let's go check on dinner!" I rushed out of the room, Bishop following at a more sedate pace, the beginnings of a grin on his face. Not that I picked out those ...things... myself. They were Ucchan's idea. She's been to so many boys-only schools that they've rubbed off on her.

Now, let me explain: I don't like to wear girls clothes. I don't like 'feeling pretty' or any of that crap.

But.

I don't hate wearing it, not anymore. I had to get used to it as time went by, for disguises and stuff, and that often got funny- like the time I pretended to be Ryoga's sister. But for all the times I cross dressed for my own amusement, the deciding factor was when I was hiding from Mom as 'Ranko'. She loved taking me out shopping for clothes- she knew that I had no mother, and she loved being able to be someone's mother, at least for a little while. And I liked spending time with her- even if I had to be a girl. That got me over the bulk of my dislike for girl's clothes. (After she found out about my curse, I'd notice her getting a wistful look in her eye whenever we'd walk past a girl's clothes store. If she had ever asked to go shopping for girl clothes with me, I wouldda said yes, for her sake.)

On the other hand, I like making Ucchan and Shampoo happy. What's a couple of pieces of sleepwear compared to them? Not that I expected them to stay in one piece for very long- Ucchan is big on ripping clothes off me.

'Arien,' I felt Shampoo's voice in my head. We had done some practising on our trip, and she was getting pretty good. Unlike her other ability, teleporting through shadows. That tended to go wrong. Her greatest success so far was winding up in the right room- falling through the ceiling. 'Dinner time.'

* * *

After dinner (and by god, Jeeves could cook!) we all met up in the basement. Emma had returned from her outing, and Tessa held something that looked like lipstick.

"Are you still set on doing this, Ranma?" Emma asked, resignedly. It looked like she still wasn't convinced.

"Yup. Might even get a good fight out of it too."

Emma sighed, and Tessa passed me the lipstick. "This is a highly compact USB drive, with a storage capacity of over four hundred gigabytes. I have coded a leach program onto it, which I am confident will pass any firewalls you might encounter. You need to find a connection to the mansion server, and insert it into a USB port. The download process will take approximately fifteen minutes."

My eyes glazed over sometime around 'USB'. "Huh?"

Her eye twitched. "Find a computer. Take the lid off the lipstick. Find a hole in the computer shaped like the plug in the lipstick. Wait 'till it stops flashing, pull it out, and come home."

I grinned happily. Nice and simple. "Gotchya. Umm... My car's at the mechanic's. He thought there was something wrong with it. Can I borrow yours?"

"NO!!!" Everyone stared as the White Queen shrieked. She then blushed. "I mean, Jeeves will teleport you to the front gate of the mansion. From there, it's all up to you." She pointed at the button on the end of the lipstick. "This is a signalling device. Push the button when you are exactly where you came in. The portal will only be open for a moment, to make sure no one can follow you."

Ucchan and Shampoo gave me a kiss each, and I slipped the not-lipstick down my top- using hidden weapons technique is much safer than a pocket. "Ready to go."

Jeeves' green portal appeared in front of me, and I stepped through.

* * *

Brent was a lifelong resident of Bayville. He had attended the school, finishing about the time that the hall was blown up by stray fireworks, and had gotten an apprenticeship at a local mechanics.

The work was fun, and he loved working with his hands. At about the time that his apprenticeship finished and he became certified, the world was rocked by a certain supervillian creating an energy barrier over an Aztec pyramid.

Today had started off like any other. He had cured a hangover with another beer, showered, bid his girlfriend a fond farewell and driven to work. There, he had argued with his boss, teased the new apprentice, and gotten to work.

The day had taken a strange turn when he had seen a new car. It was a Bentley, and it looked like the price tag could buy a couple of large houses. It was also covered in dents, there were cracks running through the windows, and the front lights were gone. All in all, it was almost enough to move Brent to tears that such a car could be treated so poorly.

The divers, a trio of hot Asian girls, had approached him and his partner. The red head took the lead. "Hey, are you the mechanic?"

Brent stood up straighter. "Yes, ma'am. Can I help you?"

"Yeah, this car's been makin' funny noises. Ya think ya can take a look?"

Brent rolled up his sleeves, and opened up the bonnet. What he saw almost made him throw up. "What in god's name did you DO?!?"

Red blushed. "Well, those sheep shouldn't have been there. Seriously, who let a herd of sheep into the middle of a road?"

"Dont forget those cacti." Interjected one of her companions.

"And the 'Shortcut'"

"And the rocks."

"Yeah, but apart from that what could it have been?" The worst part was that the red-head was serious.

"It should be ready some time tomorrow afternoon," said the other mechanic thoughtfully. Normally it would take longer, but that car screamed that its owners had the money to pay extra to get it as soon as possible.

They exchanged contact details, and the Asian trio went shopping. Brent just cuddled the car. "Don't worry, baby. Papa's gonna take care of you."

* * *

The place was surrounded by a stone wall, about two metres tall. I jumped over that without a problem, and slipped into the Umisen-ken.

An interesting fact about the Umisen-ken is that while it projects a blind-spot when people look at you, it doesn't apply directly to machines. It hides body heat, and scents, and anyone watching you on a camera will get the same effect as if they were watching directly, but things like motion detectors, automated cameras and laser beams work like normal. This meant that to slip in, I couldn't depend only on that technique- I had to work hard at it.

But you don't have Genma Saotome for a father without learning a thing or two about stealing, or breaking into places you really shouldn't be. I could see the discoloured grass which indicated there was something underneath- probably a gun. From there, it was child's play to bypass them, and run through the blind spots of the watching cameras.

My first obstacle was, interestingly enough, a person. I had jumped over an especially well placed camera, when the ground below me started exploding! I flipped sideways and ducked down. A blonde girl was chasing a guy the same age, throwing what appeared to be weak hand grenades.

"Bobby! You get your rat ass back here!" She threw more of the explosives, and I could see that she was _making_ them. I remembered that everyone who lived here was a mutant.

"No way, BoomBoom, I don't wanna die! Come on, it'll wash out, I'm almost sure!"

They kept on going, and I breathed a sigh of relief, before moving on.

The next obstacle was also a mutant. I had a moment to hear the words "Go long!" before another teenager smashed into the ground I was standing on, ploughing up the ground nicely. In his hand he held a football. He looked around, and I concentrated even harder on the Umisen-ken, and ran off.

Now it's one of the first rules of thieving- when robbing a place that still has people living in it, NEVER use the door. Heeding this rule, I jumped up into a second story window.

"Like, way better! You should have seen him, mom! He was awesome! I never knew he was that noble. He buried Magneto, and looked after me. What a hero." Yes, instead of a nice, empty room I had the luck to find one inhabited by a girl on the phone. "We haven't had time to talk much, but we're getting along way better." She looked distracted, so I sneaked over to a computer in the corner and plugged the 'lipstick' in.

The door slammed open, and in strode a grumpy goth girl, covered head to toe in chocolate pudding. "Ahh am gonna KILL that popsicle!"

The chattering teenager put her hand over the phone. "Like, eww! What happened?"

"Bobby happened! He waited for Tabitha to make one of her stupid bombs, and stuck one, _still in her hand_, into that big bowl of chocolate puddin'" She pulled off a long-sleeved, transparent green shirt. "Stupid popsicle."

I stayed, crouched in the corner; hoping no-one would see me, as gothic-pudding girl stripped off. I was half expecting to be malleted any second. Though what I would have given for Akane to mallet me. She'd never raise that mallet ever again.

"Gack!" a pudding-covered tank top hit me in the face. Instantly I knew I'd made a mistake. Chatty-girl and gothic-pudding girl froze. I froze even faster, if that makes sense, and focused on the Umisen-ken like my life depended on it- which it almost certainly did.

"What was that noise?" whispered Chatty-girl.

"Ahh dunno, but mahh top's gone." whispered back gothic-pudding girl, wearing nothing above the waist except a scandalous bra.

I glanced down at the computer, and gladly noticed that the 'lipstick' had stopped flashing. I pocketed it quickly, and ran forward, barging past the girls and jumping out the window. Behind me I heard shrieks.

I cursed to myself. The Umisen-ken needs a lot of chi to work, and this was easily twice as long as I'd ever used it for. I was running low. Experience had shown that instead of being invisible (to living things), I'd now look like a transparent blur. Then it would be a dark blur, and finally it would disappear altogether.

Some ingrained martial arts instinct warned me to jump, and a split second later red plasma lanced through where I had been. The shriek had brought people swarming out of the mansion, and some guy with a visor was waiting by the front gates- right between me and the place where the portal was.

I hit the ground, and darted sideways in time to avoid a hand-grenade-ish explosion, and a beam of ice. In front of me a blue demon (not a cat, a pointy tail demon) popped into existence, which I responded to by popping it one in the jaw, not slowing down.

Lightning, from the sky and from behind me, passed so close to me that it made my hair stand on end. A stream of liquid fire went slightly to my left, igniting an innocent tree. I risked a glance backwards, and saw a blue gorilla, a man with blades in his hands, a man who looked like he was on fire, and a small army of identical pre-pubescent boys hot on my tail. I wasn't gonna make it. So, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do.

I lunged forward, and kissed the guy with the visor. On the lips.

* * *

Finally, another chapter. I'd like to blame delays on a number of factors- end of semester tests, a computers assignment, my laptop getting stolen, and stuff. That said, the credit for this getting finished now (and not in a month) goes to Sunshine Temple- who released 3 chapters within a fortnight of each other. That really inspired me to hurry up.

Just to confirm when this fic is set- Ranma killed Saffron the same day that the X-men defeated Apocalypse. They took about two weeks getting back to japan. The wedding was the day after they arrived in Japan. Two days later, Ranma, Ukyo and Shampoo left for America. They spent about two weeks on the boat, and their road trip took exactly two weeks. That means that this is just over a month after the end of X-men: Evolution.

X-men: Evolution is not AU at all. Ranma is very slightly AU. Shampoo was human when they looked over the ruined pools of Jusenko, because her x-gene had activated (in the manga, she was a cat, next to duck-mousse). Ranma didn't notice. At the wedding, her curse was never activated. Finally, when Mr Tendo sat Ranma and Akane down after the failed wedding, Ranma was female. About five minutes later, he tried to change back and found he was locked. The scene of Ranma and Akane walking to school didn't happen. Everything else happened after the manga (if only by minutes).


	12. Chapter 10: Mechanics

Disclamer: I don't own Ranma, or X-men, as usual. I don't own the Avengers, X-factor, Exiles, Generation X, X-Force, New Mutants, New X-men, Ultimate X-men, X-men Unlimited, X-Treme X-men, Astonishing X-men, Longshot, Dazzler, Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Storm, Magneto, Mystique, or any of the other comics. Marvel and Rumio Takahashi do, and I'm just jealous.

Thanks, as always, to J.C.St Patric.

I'd like to pay homage to Terry Goodkind's fantastic Sword of Truth series, where the line 'protect me!' comes from.

* * *

Lighting, from the sky and from behind me, passed so close to me that it made my hair stand on end. A stream of liquid fire went slightly to my left, igniting an innocent tree. I risked a glance backwards, and saw a blue gorilla, a man with blades in his hands, a man who looked like he was on fire, and a small army of identical pre-pubescent boys hot on my tail. I wasn't gonna make it. So, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do.

I lunged forward, and kissed the guy with the visor. On the lips.

The guy with the visor froze, and I pulled away from him, wisps of pink smoke floating away from my mouth. "Protect me!" I growled at him, and kept moving.

Behind me, Visor-guy let loose a ruby blast at the guy in the lead, the one with claws in his hands. He went hurtling backwards, knocking over the clone lookalikes like a bowling ball.

"Scott! What are you doing?!?" Cried a flying woman. Her white hair contrasted with her dark skin. The visor guy, Scott, blasted at her, but she managed to dodge. "It's no good! He must be under some kind of telepathic control!"

"Then we'll stop them both!" This came from a walking ice sculpture. He fired some kind of freezing blast at me, which I dodged easily. I jumped the gate, and found the patch of grass where I had arrived, courtesy of Gateway. I grabbed the lipstick out of my pocket at pressed the button.

I smirked as the green of the portal surrounded me, and then I was gone.

* * *

Storm hung in the air, suspended by the winds. She watched in horror as Scott unleashed blast after blast at his fellow X-men, his pin-point accuracy being used to devastating effect. He seemed to be avoiding killing shots, but that was the only good side. She winced as he let loose a particularly nasty blast at Wolverine, smashing him through a tree.

Ororo cursed to herself. Both Jean and Professor Xavier were operating Cerebro, on account of a missing person that Rahne was worried about. They were the only telepaths on the property, and would have been able to take him out quickly and quietly.

She watched as Ray, aka Cannonball, launched himself directly at Cyclops, who ducked. Cannonball went sailing over his head, and through the brick wall. This seemed to aggravate Magma no end, as she started flaring brighter and brighter, before unleashing a massive fiery blast. Scott countered it by removing his visor. Everyone still conscious shielded their eyes, as the two unstoppable forces collided in mid air, each battling for supremacy. Sparks flew everywhere.

And then it was over. Scott collapsed, and Magma stopped her fire in surprise. As the vision impaired mutant fell, two figures floated up from underneath the ground. It was Shaddowcat, holding onto Rogue, now keeping her eyes shut. Storm sighed in relief. It was over.

* * *

I appeared back in Emma's basement. Everyone was there, looking expectant. Shampoo and Ucchan looked the most concerned, although Bishop was a close second for some reason. I chucked the lipstick-thing at Emma. "Here you go. Excuse me." With that, I rushed off.

I sprinted as fast as I could (which is pretty fast), and wound up in the kitchen. Ucchan and Shampoo were seconds behind me, and by the time Tessa, Emma, Bishop and Jeeves showed up I was using Bleach as mouthwash.

Emma was the first to speak. "Wha.. stop it! Ukyo, stop her!"

Bishop tried to get to me, but Shamps stopped him. "Is alright. Arien has eaten worse."

I gargled, but I still had a disgusting taste in my mouth. I spat into the sink and poured more cleaning stuff into my mouth. "Hhhhggggggrllll grrrrrrrglllllll!!!!"

"She just said 'Gotta wash the taste out of my mouth', I think," translated my Okonomiyaki-inclined fiancée.

"That's POISON!! It will KILL HER!" Emma was freaking out.

"She's not gonna swallow it, and she's eaten worse anyway. Hell, I think there was that one time when _she_ even cooked with it. Don't worry." Ucchan was looking worried though. Even through my disgust (not entirely at the taste), I smiled a little inside. Ucchan knew me so well.

I felt the feather light touch of Shampoo in my head, and I shamefully showed her what had happened. She wrapped her arms around me, and I spat the last of the stuff into the sink. "Gah. Let's go to bed." I needed to feel manly.

* * *

As Shampoo led Ranma out of the room, Ukyo spoke to Emma. "She was in a fight. Do we need to worry about being found, with that Cerebro machine?"

Emma shook her head. "No. I can shield us, though it will be unpleasant. I'll make the call now, and get the specialist." Her serious expression stayed the same, but her eye got an amused twinkle in it. "Aren't you missing out on some ...entertainment?" Ukyo's eyes bugged out, and she fled the room.

Emma sighed to herself, and took out her cell phone. She looked distastefully at it for a moment, and then made a call. "Cousin."

* * *

Ukyo Konji was a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, she was 'that girl who chases after Ranma and calls herself cute'. To others, she was 'that guy who cooks a mean Okonomiyaki '. To a few, she was 'the butch one from the hot lesbian threesome' (her personal favourite). But anyone who had known her for more than a minute knew how much she cared about her fiancé. It would have been reasonable to say that she knew Ranma better than anyone, with the possible exception of a certain telepathic Amazon. She had picked up a weird vibe from Ranma in the kitchen, and when she returned to her room that was only confirmed. Ranma was lying on the bed, next to Shampoo, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Shampoo was holding the pigtailed girl, whose eyes were suspiciously red. The Okonomiyaki chef quietly stripped, and lay down next to her fiancé. "Wanna talk about it, honey?" she asked quietly.

Ranma sniffed. "No." She looked down for a minute. "Yes."

Ukyo followed her gaze, which had landed on the redhead's chest. "Oh. Ranchan, you're always a man to me. I don't care that you're stuck- 'cause you're stuck with me!"

That brought a weak giggle. "Yeah, but you like my girl body."

She caught the unspoken undertone, 'more than my real body'. "You might look like a girl, but you aren't." She smirked. "I might like girls, but there is one guy I like."

Ranma responded with a look of despair. "Who?"

She lightly clouted him on the head. "You, silly! I remember all those nights, thinking about you..." She blushed. "Anyway, I never liked your girl body more. I liked it just as much as your real one."

"... thanks, Ucchan."

She grinned internally. Ranma was looking better. "But that wasn't what had you down, was it? Come on, you can tell us, sugar."

Ranma looked sad again. "Tonight... when I was breaking out of the mansion... I... I... couldn't do it. I wasn't strong enough- I ran out of chi. So, I had to..."

"to...?"

"kiss some guy." She said, in a small voice.

The chef's eyes bulged. "I'll KILL HIM! HOW DARE HE STEAL MY RANCHAN'S LIPS!!!!" Shampoo and Ranma covered their ears in pain. She blushed again. "Oops. Sorry."

An expression of self-loathing settled on Ranma's face. "Damn it, what kinda guy am I? Whenever the going gets tough, I get girly! The leech. The mansion. That chef guy. Kuno." The last was said with hatred.

Shampoo hugged Ramna tighter, and sighed. "It is no your curse. Is Anything-goes!"

Ucchan made eye contact with the Amazon and nodded in approval. "Yeah! It's not you turning into a girl, it's you being you- adapting to whatever the hell comes at you!"

Ranma looked from one to the other with hope in her eyes. "You sure?"

"Positive, honey. I don't know about the other stuff, but I remember when you had your strength zapped by the pervert. I remember just how hard you fought, how many things you tried. And I remember how you only did it as a last resort- and you made it work!"

"I remember you against pantyhose-monster. Against Pink and Link. Against Saffron. You do what you must. And Arien- You WIN!"

Ranma grinned at that, and for a moment she glowed blue with confidence chi. Ukyo and Shampoo grinned at each other. Crisis averted.

That night, the three of them slept well, and for the first time since that fateful day in Nerima, they just cuddled. No marathon orgies, no activity at all. Just the three of them, enjoying the feeling of being held. Oddly enough, they all thought the same thing.

'This is the way I want to spend the rest of my life.'

* * *

Professor Xaiver sighed, and hung up his Helmet. "I'm sorry Rahne, but I can find no trace of your friend."

Rahne looked down. "That's ok, Professor X."

Jean gave the Scottish lass a quick hug. "We can always look again later."

The door opened, and the trio watched as Bobby Drake ran in, panting. "Guys, something happened. Scott's gone weird. Someone broke in, and then they did something to him- he started attacking us all! Beast's got him in the medlab now."

* * *

The next morning, we came down to breakfast to find an extra plate set up. "Hey, is that for me?" I asked Emma's butler hopefully.

"No, Ranma-sama," he said with apology. "That is for Ms Frost's cousin. If you want, I can make some more."

"I'm good." I could raid the kitchen later. "Who's Emma's cousin?"

"An inventor, and the only family she has that she finds agreeable company. He is the one who is to make the jamming device for the mutant detecting machine, Cerebro."

In the distance, the doorbell rang, and I rushed to answer it. The door revealed a guy, not much older than me. His auburn hair was cropped close to his scalp, and he was clean shaven. His forearms bulged with muscle. "Excuse me, miss. Does Emma live here?" He asked politely.

"Yup. Are you her cousin?" I asked cheerfully, moving out of the doorway. He entered the house.

"That's me. I'm Forge, ma'am."

"Ok." I took a deep breath. "OI! EMMA! FORGE'S HERE!!!"

Forge winced, and followed me towards the lounge. I ducked into the kitchen, and grabbed his plate. "Here ya go. Trust me, it's good. I don't think Jeeves could cook bad if he wanted to."

He took the plate gratefully. "Thanks you, miss."

I waved him off. "It's Ranma. Nice to meet ya." There was a brief silence. "So. Millitary?"

He looked surprised, in a good way. "Yeah. Just out of training. My unit deploys in Iraq next month. How did you know?"

"I knew a few people from the military base in Tokyo. Military people walk different to normal people." Well, that was part of the reason. Pop's had taught me how to pick out police and soldiers back when I was a kid- he really knew how to make enemies (one of the few things I inherited from him). Another thought struck me. "You don't look a lot like Emma. You sure that you two are related?"

He chuckled. "Yeah. She's English, and her mom's sister, Laura Harriet, moved to America. She fell in love with a Cheyenne- native American- chieftain, my dad. Of course, my folks are dead, and I had no brothers or sisters. Emma, her sisters, and her mom are the only family I've got."

That confused me slightly. "I thought Jeeves said she had no family."

"I said that she does not enjoy the company of any of her other family, Ranma-sama." I jumped; Jeeves had snuck up behind me. "Miss Frost is in the basement, Master Forge. Please, this way." They wandered off. I rubbed my chin, for a moment missing the sensation of stubble. We didn't really know much about Emma. From her actions, and her body language, I knew some stuff. She liked to know things, and she liked the rich life. She also cared a lot, far more than she wanted anyone to know. But I was sure that there was far more to her than that, and I resolved to find it out. Not because I didn't trust her, but because I did. She had done a lot for us, and far more for Bishop, Ivan and Ivan.

In boredom, I wandered around to see what everyone else was up to. Shamps and Ucchan were watching the morning news with Bishop. All up, nothing interesting. I headed after Forge.

He'd gone somewhere into the basement- I hadn't been there much, just when Jeeves was sending me off to steal the plans. So, it was interesting to look around. It was massive down there, with all sorts of corridors branching off everywhere. I managed to identify an infirmary, a weapon storage room (melee and guns), a room with what looked like a giant computer in it, and what I could have sworn was an underground hanger.

Finally, I found Forge, or at least his bottom half. The rest of him was submerged in electronics, talking intently with Tessa and Emma. "How's it going?" I asked cheerfully.

Emma smilled. "Ahh, Ranma. Excellent timing. I'd like to show you something." She looked a lot happier than normal. She pointed around the room. "This is the control booth for our training room. Forge is adding the finishing touches, but when it's finished we'll have the definitive training facility."

I scratched my head. "Why have a dojo underground?"

Emma smirked. "Follow me." She lead me out of the room, though the corridor and down some stairs. She stopped in front of a tough looking metal door, and typed on the keypad mounted on the front. "The code is 686493." The door opened, and my jaw dropped.

We were in a room that was, for lack of a better word, freaking massive. It was a hemisphere, as big as the hanger. The room was lit with a soft, blue glow. "Emma... what the?!?"

She smirked even more. "This is my answer to the X-Men's training room, the Danger Room. It uses solid holograms to create anything. You want a forest- it will make a forest. It uses a complex climate control system to replicate any environment we might want."

"You mean like on Star Trek!?!" I gasped.

She nodded, now grinning outright. "Exactly like Star Trek. It can even replicate people."

That made me think of my new students, and then of something else I'd been thinking about. "I'll be training all the students, right?"

She nodded. "Indeed."

"Then I'm gonna wanna train you and Tessa, too."

She frowned. "I hardly think that's necessary. I am one of the most powerful telepaths in the world."

I winced. She was taking this badly. "Yeah, and what if you get attacked by some of those guys from the base- the ones you couldn't read? Or robots or something?" I softened my tone. "It doesn't have to be very hard training, but I don't want anything to happen to you two because you relied too much on your powers." Or because I failed to take you seriously, I added mentally. I wasn't going to let that happen. Not again.

She sighed. "Very well."

I beamed at her, and wandered back to the main floor. Finding a phone, and a business card, I made a call. "Hi, I dropped my car off yesterday. A green, uh, Bentley. Is it ready yet?"

"Miss Ranma? We had to pull an all-nighter, but your car is all ready."

"Hey, thanks! I'll drop by to pick it up sometime today. Bye."

I hung up the phone, and went back to see my girls. They were still fascinated by the TV. I bent over and kissed them soundly. Shampoo purred happily, while Ucchan gave me a loving grope. "I'm gonna head off into town, and pick up the car. Wanna come?"

They shared a look. "No thanks, honey. Me an' Shampoo wanna get our room organized. Unless you want to help?"

I shivered. "Uh... no thanks. Have fun!" I dashed out the door before they could conscript me. I'd rather arm wrestle Pantyhose Taro than have anything to do with girly crap like that. All that stuff my girls had bought the day before was just lying around the house, waiting to go into our room. That was a job that scared ME.

* * *

Shampoo waited until her husband was safely out the door before she burst into giggles. "That was mean," she managed to gasp.

Ukyo had the grace to look embarrassed. "Hey, you wanted to surprise hi-her, right? And can you think of a better way to get her out of the house?"

The Amazon took a moment to think. "We suggest we get her ears pierced?" This time they both cracked up. Bishop gave them a strange look.

"What's so strange about her getting ear piercings?" Asked Bishop.

Ukyo grinned, like she was privy to some joke that they weren't- which, in fact, she was. "Ranchan's a real tomboy. Hell, I don't think she's ever worn makeup in her life, and I know for a fact that unless we forced her into it, she'd never wear a bra." She turned back to her fiancé's wife. "Come on. She ain't gonna be all day, and we've got work to do."

* * *

Rahne Sinclair walked along the street happily. It was a glorious Saturday, with not a cloud in the sky. She was back at the one true home she'd had in years, and her friends were going shopping with her. Kitty looked as cheerful as ever, and even Rogue seemed a little less depressed than usual. Everyone else was back at the mansion, puzzling over the previous night's attack. No one was quite sure _what_ had happened. Something invisible had peeped on Rogue getting changed, and then fled the mansion. It had managed to evade almost the entire roster of X-men, get out of the grounds, and disappear. Worst of all, it had made Scott fight against them all! He remembered what had happened. The way he explained it, it just suddenly seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Jean and the Professor had probed his mind, and felt no evidence of telepathic compulsion. Scott was now sitting under guard in one of the containment cells.

"So, Rogue, is that shop you like still around?" Rahne asked. Not that she had much interest in the punk/gothic look, but having toured all her and Kitty's favourite stores it was only fair to go there. Besides, everyone looked good in leather.

"Nahhh. Damn place closed the other day." Then the goth did something she seldom did- she blushed. "Ahh was walkin' past yesterday, and ahh found the new owners in ah... private moment."

Rahne blushed too, but Kitty squealed in excitement. "Ohh! Like, what did he look like? Anyone we know? Was it Peitro?" The last was a fair question. Peitro Maximov was, in all kindness, a man-slut. He was famous for sleeping with anyone who expressed an interest. There was even a rumour floating around that the source of the famous Evan/Peitro rivalry was that Peitro had stolen Evan's girl- or cheated _on_ Evan _with_ a girl. No one really believed it, but it only added to his reputation.

Rogue blushed again. "No guys at all. Just three gals our age. They were Asian."

A thought went through Rahne's mind. "Was one of them a short red-head?"

The southern mutant blinks. "How did yah know?"

"I caught a ride back to Bayville with three lesbian Asians." Rahne thought back to the conversations they'd had. "They were nice. They let me stay with them at the motel."

The other two gave her meaningful looks. "Not like that! Get your heads out of the gutter!" The other two snickered. Rahne thought back to the girls. "Well, Ukyo and Shampoo wouldn't have minded, I think. But Ranma would have."

"Someone say my name?" A cheerful voice asked from behind them. The jumped and spun around. They were confronted with a short Japanese girl, with her flaming red hair done up in a cute pigtail. She had a bust that was ...disproportionate... for someone of her size. "Hey! Rahne! Did ya find your way back to your friends?"

"Yes! Thank you again for the ride!" Rahne looked around. "Where are Ukyo and Shampoo?"

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Busy decorating our room. I ran away while I had the chance. What you guys up to?"

"We're just shopping. Oh, this is Kitty, and Rogue," she said, pointing at each in turn. "We go to a private school. Guys, this is Ranma."

"Nice to meet you!" Kitty chirped.

Rogue just nodded. Ranma smiled, before she started blushing madly. "Ummm... you guys want a ride? My car's just around the corner." Rahne's eyes bugged out. Could Ranma like Rogue?!?

She shook her head. That was impossible; the redhead already had two girlfriends. "Yes, please."

* * *

The car pulled up just outside the Xavier institute. In the back seat, Rogue and Rahne were holding each other as if their lives depended on it. They faces were chalk white, and they couldn't stop shaking. In the front seat, Kitty was squealing excitedly. "That was awesome! I wish I was as good a driver as you are, Ranma!"

The Japanese girl blushed slightly. "Aw, it wasn't much. I call it 'Martial Arts Driving'."

Kitty hugged her quickly. "Do you think you could teach me how to do it? For some reason, no one in the mansion wants to teach me how to drive."

"Heh, sure." Ranma reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. "Here's my number. We can figure out when and where later."

"Thanks!" Kitty noticed Rogue and Rahne still shaking. "What are you two waiting for?"

* * *

I walked back into the mansion. Jeeves was there to greet me. "How was your excursion, Ranma-sama?"

"Eh, not bad. I got some ice-cream, an' I bumped into a hitchhiker I met on the way here from New York. Where is everyone?"

"Master Forge is still with Mistresses Emma and Tessa. Bishop is watching television, and Ukyo and Mistress Shampoo are in your room."

I bowed a thank you, and went up to our room. Our living room was... furnished. It actually looked homey. There was some noise coming from the bedroom, so I moved to investigate. I opened the door- and my nose started bleeding.

Now, I've seen Shampoo in sexy outfits. Hell, I'm not sure I've seen her in a non-sexy outfit. But this... this was in a league of its own. She was wearing a pair of high heeled boots that came up above her knees. A pair of bands made of the same material wrapped around each thigh, between the boots and the tight leotard that covered her torso. She wore elbow length gloves, with another pair of bands on each upper arm. The whole outfit was a dark blue, verging on purple. But what really got me was the material. It could have been painted on with a glossy paint. It was so thin, and I could tell for a fact that she had absolutely nothing on underneath.

"Gah... huh?" I spluttered. Hey, my brain was almost melting!

She waggled her finger. "Silly Arien. Kept us waiting. Time to be... punished." For emphasis, she waggled a whip.

* * *

Forge looked up from his place in the basement, finishing up his Anti-Cerebro device.

Emma looked up from her desk, where she was going through reports.

Sage looked up from her supercomputer, where she was looking for evidence of mutants.

Bishop looked up from the TV.

Jeeves looked up from the dinner he was preparing.

Oddly enough, all five had the same thought.

'Tomorrow, we get their room sound-proofed.'

* * *

A few hours later, an exhausted and sweaty Ranma staggered into the kitchen, followed by two taller girls who looked like the cat who had eaten the canary- which was almost literally true.

"So, uh, Jeeves, is dinner ready yet?"

The butler hid a smile. "I shall reheat it for you immediately, Ranma-sama."

The redhead nodded, and slumped into a chair. Ukyo looked at Forge. "So, are you going to live here too?"

He chuckled. "No, I'm off tomorrow. My unit deploys in Iraq soon. This will probably be the last time you see me for a while."

Shampoo pouted. "Well, come visit occasionally. Emma loves having you around."

Emma blushed slightly. "Anyway. Ranma- are you awake?"

There was a slight mumbling from the exhausted girl, and a slight head movement that Emma chose to interpret as a nod. "Good. Listen- your new students arrive tomorrow. I expect you to evaluate their skills, and plan a training regime. Shall I give you their files now?"

There was more mumbling. "She says 'No, I'd rather meet them and figure things out from there.'" Ukyo translated. Every non-Asian in the room sweatdropped.

Jeeves walked back into the room, carrying two plates, filled up to the max. He sat them down in front of Ranma. "Enjoy."

Forge had seen some odd things in his life- pseudo-demons, actual demons, thirty years spent trapped in a parallel universe that sat just out of reach of the women's locker room. But what came next was odd even for him. Ranma- who as far as he was concerned was just a hot, rude girl, who paid little attention to things like monogamy or heterosexuality, smashed her face into her dinner, submerging it in food right up to her ears. There were a few seconds in which she was still, making Forge fear that she was suffocating, before the food started disappearing. Before his eyes, the pile shrunk, not even leaving a trace of food on either the plate or Ranma. Not even fifteen seconds after she had face planted, the food was all gone.

The redhead sat upright again, with no sign of the exhaustion she had been displaying. "Thanks, Jeeves!" Everyone facefaulted.

Shampoo ran her eyes predatorily over the revitalized martial artist, before grabbing her and hoisting her over her shoulder. Ukyo grinned depravedly, and grabbed the uneaten plate. "We'll see you guys tomorrow!" They left the room in a hurry.

The remaining people rolled their eyes. "Before you leave, cousin," Emma started. "Do you have the time to create some kind of noise dampener?"

The sound of Forge agreeing was drowned out by a desperate wail, followed by a rhythmic pounding, interspersed by moans and screams. "I'll get right to work."

* * *

And that's another chapter! Guess I was wrong about having Growing of a SeeD updating first. Oops.

For those of you who haven't seen X-men: Evolution, Kitty was an outrageously bad driver, yet didn't realized it- kinda like Akane and her cooking. (Kitty's probably on Akane's level cooking-wise, too.)

But before we go, it's time for 'What have they been doing!'

…

A STAGE is set up with lights, in front of an audience. RANMA and SHAMPOO are standing on the stage, each in a low-cut dress. UKYO is in a tuxedo.

RANMA moves to the center of the stage. "Welcome to 'What Have They Been Doing!' This is where we try and explain what happened to a character from X-men: Evolution!"

UKYO: "That's because the jackasses who made it forgot about half the people they introduced."

SHAMPOO: "Today, we talk about inventor-boy, FORGE."

RANMA: "Forge was in two episodes of Evolution. He was trapped in some kinda parallel-dimension thingy for thirty years."

UKYO: "But he hasn't been seen in ages on the show! Not even in the dramatic ending where they showed visions of the future. That's 'cause he was in military training!"

SHAMPOO: "Or so Author says."

RANMA: "He also had some weird techno-hand thingy."

UKYO: "They never said if it was his mutant power, or an invention, or what."

RANMA: "So the author is saying it was all a high-tech glove. Cheap bastard- everyone knows FORGE is supposed to have a metal leg."

The LIGHTS go dark, and the curtain closes.

UKYO: "Ranchan you jackass! Don't piss off the author!"


	13. Chapter 11: Meeting the Students

I don't own X-men or Ranma ½. If I did, they would probably suck, and there would be a lot of giant robots involved.

Thanks to **Spokavriel**for help with my spelling, and **TerraBull**for some great ideas (some of which were uncomfortably close to my plans for this fic), and to Sunshine Temple for the Fukufics forum where I hang out and discuss ideas.

Sorry this chapter is so short- I had planned it to be about twice as long, but I couldn't find a decent end point. So here's this chapter, and hopefully the next one won't be too long.

* * *

Light penetrated the curtains of our room, and I slowly woke up. I could feel two warm bodies curled up next to me, and I sighed contentedly. Even the previous night had been fun- although that was partially because of my martial artist enhanced healing. Otherwise I would have had major rope burn and some serious trouble sitting down for ages. I sighed again, and snuggled forward into Ucchan. She snuggled back. "Mornin', honey. Nervous?"

I had a brief mind blank, before I caught on to what she was saying. "Nah, not really. Pop's always wanted me to teach the art, and I got some practice on our training trip, teaching kids."

She smiled at me, and kissed me. "Good. So, that means you'll be training me too, huh?"

I winced at that. "Ucchan... I'm sorry you aren't with me and Shampoo, with a funny chess name an' all."

She waved it off. "Hey, I don't want any of that stuff. I'm no good at teaching, I hate politics, and I'd rather make Okonomiyaki anyway." She grinned. "And it means I get a little time with just the two of us."

I felt a stirring behind me. "And I get him during meetings."

"Hey, I'm not a slice of meat!" I protested. A thought occurred to me. "Well, except last night."

They snickered at me, and I blushed. I was doing a lot of that now days, but then again I'd never had so much reason to do so. Ucchan ran a hand up from my bellybutton to my neck, making me shiver in a good way. She stroked a piece of string that sat around my neck. A Japanese-style coin hung off it. Something occurred to me. "Oh, I think I've made a new friend."

"Really? Why did he try to kill you?" Shampoo clouted Ucchan lightly.

I huffed. "Hey, not every friend I've ever made wanted to kill me at first!" I wracked my brains for an example, and finding none, moved on. "Remember Rahne? It's one of her friends, Kitty. I gave them a ride home yesterday, and she asked me to give her lessons."

Ucchans eyes bugged out. "DRIVING lessons?!?"

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!?"

Shampoo clouted her again. "Nothing." She paused. "Hey- why didn't you flinch when you said her name?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"Kitty? Cat? Neko?" The last made me flinch big time.

"Ummm... no idea?"

Shampoo sighed, and I looked to her for the answer. "I think it's something to do with the language thing. You know how people who talk in other languages start to think in them eventually?" I nodded. "Well, as a by-product of the way I gave you the language, you shouldn't be thinking in English at all- still Japanese. Maybe it's something to do with that. After all, you didn't learn English- I copied Emma's language centre of her brain, and gave it to you two. There would have to be some unusual side effects. You probably haven't noticed, but you both speak perfect English. Not just good, but perfect. You understand puns, figures of speech, and you don't have trouble pronouncing the letter L."

I nodded. "That explains how you suddenly got so good at English as well."

She blushed. "I didn't mean too, it just happened. Pieces of the information I gave to you are floating around in my head. I did no want for that to happen."

I'm not exactly the most perceptive person in the world, but even I noticed how nervous she was. I gave her another hug. "Hey, don't be worried. It's not cheating, what you did, it's a technique. Like I'm not cheating when I use the Hiro-Shoten-Ha."

She smiled at me. "I know."

"Shampoo..." I looked into her eyes. "Ya don't need to prove that you can learn it on your own, either. You're one of the smartest people I've ever known. Even smarter than Nabiki." She blushed.

"It's true, honey. I'm getting you to do the books when we set up our new cafe."

Shampoo smiled in a way that lit up the whole room, and I remembered something else. "Remember that top I brought back after I broke into the mansion? The one covered in pudding? I met its owner, and she's Kitty's roommate." I thought back to that car ride. "Man, I was so embarrassed. There I was, driving her home with her friends, and I had to keep telling myself 'don't think about her breasts. Don't think about her breasts."

My girls started giggling, and didn't stop even when I got out of bed and got dressed. I rolled my eyes at them, and went down for breakfast.

* * *

At the Xaiver institute for gifted youngsters, Katherine Pride, also known as Shaddowcat or Kitty, was preparing nerve gas- or so the other students acted. The younger students had already been smuggled covertly out of the mansion, and now Amara and Kurt were keeping a fearful eye on the happenings in the kitchen. Ororo was attempting damage control, but that was only serving to worsen the situation.

Kitty was _cooking._

Kitty was making _muffins_.

Due to experience, Hank had locked the lab doors, and electrified them. Citing an experiment as a reason, he had warned them not to expect him out for days. The rest of the mansion envied his excuse.

Oblivious to all of this, Kitty was adding extra chocolate happily. "And she just said yes! So that's why these are so important. I've got to show her how thankful I am." Absently, she added turmeric instead of cocoa. Ororo sweatdropped. "She's the one who drove Rahne back here. Oh, and she's a raging lesbian."

Ororo raised her eyebrow. "Are you trying to ask her out?"

Kitty made a disgusted face. "Um, no!" Her eyes unfocused. "I'm with Lance... I think. We haven't talked about it much, but since Apocalypse... came for ME. Risked death, fought against one of the strongest mutants in the world, to rescue me!" She sighed happily.

Ororo, however, wasn't focused on her on-again/off-again boyfriend. "Are you sure that this girl knows that you aren't asking her out? It sounds like a date to me."

Kitty poured the mixture into the muffin tray. "I don't think so. She has two girlfriends, and wasn't looking at me that way." She frowned. "But she was looking at Rogue a lot, and blushing..." Kitty wasn't too sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, Ranma already had two girls. On the other hand, Rogue was lonely; no matter much she tried to hide it. On the other other hand, Rogue couldn't touch anyone without her mutant power draining them to unconsciousness, or beyond. On the other other other hand, it would mean that she'd be able to borrow Ranma's car from time to time.

Kitty shrugged. That was another day's problem. She took a look at the now baking muffins, and nodded. Perfect. The fact that one of them was pulsing in 3/4 beat went unnoticed.

* * *

"So, how many students am I gonna have again?"

Emma sighed. "Again, five students, plus either one or two depending on how many people you consider the Ivans to be."

I nodded. "So, where are they gonna stay?"

"They will be living here, on the second floor." She looked distracted for a moment. "But we need to set out some ground rules for them."

"We?" I asked in confusion. Surly she meant herself.

"Yes, we. You won't just be teaching them, you'll be leading them. We need to start making some decisions- rules, uniforms, allowance."

I nodded. That made sense. "Well, for allowance, I don't think they should get much. Let's make them work for it. With so many people around, they can take it in turns to cook and clean. When Ucchan and Shamps get the cafe open, they can get part-time jobs there."

"Are you sure? Perhaps it would be wiser to give them a substantial allowance- to encourage loyalty."

I shook my head so fast my pigtail hit me in the eye. "Uh-uh. Bad idea. I don't want fat, pampered little brats. I want students who know about hard work." Emma didn't look like she agreed, so I put my foot down. "That's too important to me, Emma. If you won't agree to this, I don't think I can teach them." I'd be damned if I ended up with a bunch of Kunos.

She frowned, but nodded. "Very well. What about uniforms?"

"Do we really need them? It's not like they'd keep our identities secret without a mask, and even they aren't that useful." Ok, I was just making shit up- I _hate_ wearing a uniform.

"They encourage teamwork and respectability. Consider it a trade for the allowance." She was smug, but I had to agree with her logic.

"That's fair. What about rules? No bullying, try to keep their powers a secret?"

She sighed. "Mingling with the other teams? Curfew? Television? Dating? Sex?"

I rubbed my chin, once again remembering that I'd never have to shave it again. "Well, for a curfew, I say don't bother. If they stay up too late and can't function right the next day, I'll train them extra hard to make sure they learn their lesson." We exchanged evil looks. "Television- I don't care what they watch. Hanging around with other teams- meh. I ain't gonna tell people who they can be friends with. Dating- um, as long as we keep the property damage down?"

Emma's eyes bugged out for some reason. I couldn't see why- even as rich as she was, it was still sensible to make sure that my students wouldn't wreck the house too often. "And sex?"

I blushed. "Umm. Make sure no one becomes a parent?"

"I would rather we have a compulsory sex-education course. Otherwise, I agree with you. However," she said as I started to smile- Emma was pretty smart, and I knew I wasn't. It was nice to have someone accept my decisions. "They must go to school. Starting tomorrow."

I opened my mouth to complain, but she gave me this look. This look females have- the one which says 'I'm right. You're wrong. If you argue, you will regret it.' I surrendered faster than Pop's self restraint in front of a bottle of Sake. "Yes Emma." She smirked, and left.

Sometime later, I looked up from my breakfast (third serving) to see Jeeves holding the phone. "Ranma-sama, a Kitty Pride is calling for you."

I nodded, and took the phone. "Thanks Jeeves." I leaned back in my chair, careful to balance my breakfast on my lap. "Hey, Kitty. What's happening?"

"Nothing much. I just wanted to know if you wanted to start today." She sounded hopeful, and more than a little nervous.

"Hold on a sec." I covered the phone. "OI! EMMA! What time are my students arriving?!?"

Her response echoed in my head. 'Two this afternoon.'

I uncovered the phone. "Yup, no problem. I gotta be back by two though."

"YES!" I winced. "Can we use your car? No one around here will let me borrow one." She paused for a brief second. "Oh, and I baked some muffins."

"YES!!! I mean, uh, yup, no problem. I'll come over a bit later."

"Thank you! See you soon! Bye!"

I gave the phone back to Jeeves and sighed happily. Mmmmm. Muffins.

* * *

Half an hour later, I rolled to a halt just outside the mansion gates. A voice came from one of the walls, and a camera mounted at the top of one of the posts pointed at me. "Yeah? Whadda ya want?"

I smiled that smile that makes people stammer (I've never been too sure why it does that- I think it makes me look dangerous. Never found out why it only works in girl-form.) "Hi, I'm Ranma. I'm here to take Kitty driving."

The gates opened, and I drove in. The place was looking better than it had when I broke in (and out) two days before. All the holes had been filled in, and plants had been added. I was briefly reminded of the Tendo place, how Kasumi used to fix the garden after each of my fights. Looking back, I felt a lot less guilty about having caused her so much work.

At the front door, a woman with dark skin and white hair was waiting for me. I remembered her as the one who had been throwing lightning at me. Now that she wasn't acting like a pissed off kami, she seemed pretty nice. "Hey, I'm Ranma. Is Kitty around?"

She walked closer, and I got out of the car to greet her. "She's coming soon. So, you're taking her for driving lessons, I hear. That's very kind of you."

I laughed nervously, and scratched my head. "Yeah, well, she wanted to learn, ya know? And it's a good way to make some friends- I just moved here, and all I know is the people at my place and Rahne."

She nodded. "Would you like a guide? I think Bobby or Ray would love the chance to show a cute stranger around."

"Eww! No thanks!" Due to the guys at school trying to ask my girl side out, I'd learned to see a setup from miles away.

Lightning-woman cocked an eyebrow. "What about Rogue?"

I sighed. "Look- I'm not interested in setting up a date, thanks. I've got the two most beautiful, wonderful girls in the world, and I wouldn't trade them for anything." I smiled, thinking of them, of everything we'd been through. "They've been there for me through everything. They've been there for me at the worst moments of my life. No matter how little I deserve them, how much of a jerk I've been to them, they've been there. I'm not interested in anyone else!" It was true, I realized. I wouldn't trade them for anything- or anyone. Not even Akane.

She got a funny look in her eye, and I had the feeling that I'd passed some sort of test. Kitty came skipping out, carrying a basket. "Hey Ranma! Did I keep you too long?"

I shook my head. "Naah. Just getting to know... her. Not very well, I guess." I blushed, not knowing her name. The other two laughed.

"Ororo. Nice to meet you."

I ushered Kitty into the driver's seat, and hopped in next to her. She looked giddy with excitement, and Ororo rushed back into the mansion. I noticed that every window in the place had people looking out at us in fear. "Hey, what's up with your fellow mansion people?"

Kitty looked confused. "Like, I'm not sure."

I shook my head. "Oh well. So I take it you know how to turn the car on, right?"

* * *

"Now, it's okay to cut as close to another car as you want- as long as you only scrape them."

* * *

"See where it says '60'? That means that most people will be going a bit less than 60 miles an hour- it's a warning for fast drivers that other people are going to be in your way. That means that you have to steer extra carefully."

* * *

"Huh? Of course you can drive on the sidewalk. As long as you don't hit anyone, no one 'ill mind. It's easiest if no one's around, but if there's only a couple of people, you can usually manage driving it- they should jump out of the way.

* * *

"Now, pull on the brakes hard and turn hard left." There was a shriek of tyres squealing as the car spun 180 degrees, sliding into a parking space. "There we go. That's how you parallel park."

* * *

Kurt sat in a tree, outside the Xavier institute. He was holding a pair of binoculars, peering intently at the road. His yellow eyes suddenly widened. "She's back!" He exclaimed in a German accent, before vanishing in a puff of smoke and brimstone.

Inside the mansion, everyone was waiting breathlessly at the windows. Even the teachers had been seen looking warily towards the gate. There were several running bets- whether Kitty's cooking killed Ranma, whether Ranma had tried them and wouldn't teach her (or died on them and couldn't teach her), whether Ranma would decide that Kitty was unteachable. Bobby and Kurt were acting as the bet takers.

Outside the mansion the car pulled in. It was a little scratched on the corners, one of the wing mirrors was missing, and there was something suspicious on the dented bumper. They watched with disbelief as the resident mutant hugged the Asian girl, who looked embarrassed at the unexpected contact. The red-head then ate a muffin, and drove off with a smile on her face.

Kitty skipped back into the house, not paying attention to the fact that everyone was waiting for her. "That was awesome!!!"

Logan cocked an eyebrow. "So it went well, kid?"

She clapped her hands together. "It, like, could _not_ have been any better! She taught me so much! I can't wait till next Sunday."

"How did the muffins go down?"

"She loved them! She ate half of them at once, and promised to share the rest with her girlfriends." Kitty looked in heaven. Considering that it was the first time that anyone had enjoyed her muffins, she had good reason.

Kurt felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He turned around to see Rahne. "I think you owe me some money now." The blue mutant paled at the realization of how much money she'd won- having been the only person to bet that everything would go well, they'd given her excellent odds. Nightcrawler had the sinking feeling that he'd have to make some serious withdraws from his account to cover the bet.

* * *

I pulled back in to our mansion, munching contentedly on a muffin. They were, in all honesty, the best damn muffins I'd ever eaten. Of course, my taste buds weren't exactly normal- considering what I've forced myself to eat for Akane (and on that one occasion, Ukyo), and what Kodachi forced down my throat, I'd become pretty resistant to bad food- and most poisons. I could tell that they would be a little hard to digest for a normal person.

As I opened the door, I heard several unfamiliar voices. Wincing, I checked my wrist, only to remember that I didn't own a watch. I tracked them all down to the living room, where everyone was sitting around chatting. There were lots of faces I didn't recognise.

"Hello," I called, only to be ignored over the sound of the chatting. Off in one corner I noticed Tessa and Emma wincing at the volume of it all. "OI!!!"

The effect was instant. The entire room went quiet, and everyone turned to face me. There was Ivan and Ivanovitch again, along with four new faces, three of them girls. Emma was the one to break the silence. "Ranma. How good of you to show. I was debating sending someone out to search for you."

I blushed, and a few people snickered. "Well, there was a little trouble with the cops." I noticed Ucchan give me a look. "Hey, they never put a sign out against doing it. It's not my fault that they have a stick up their ass about driving up stairs!" More quietly I muttered to myself, "Or that rabbit." From the startled looks I got, I hadn't muttered quietly enough.

Emma and Tessa got up, along with Shampoo, and walked out of the room. Shampoo gave me a quick hug. 'They know about the Hellfire Club, and mostly about the Hellions. You DO have to make a speech though.' She left, groping me lightly in the process.

As the door shut, I realized that it was time to begin this whole thing. "Um, ok guys. I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about being late. Why don't you all tell me a bit about your selves?" I noticed a few roll their eyes. "Hey, I've never done this before! I'm going off what we did in school, and what I've seen on TV." They all laughed good naturedly.

Ucchan, prompted by my look, was the first to speak. "Hi everyone. I'm Ukyo Kuonji. I'm 18, blood type A positive, and I'm from Japan. I like to cook Okonomiyaki." There was a roomful of blank stares. She sighed. "It's a Japanese food, kinda like a pancake-pizza. I'm opening a restaurant with Shampoo, so you'll all get a chance to try some another time."

She had obviously finished, and a blond girl spoke up. "Are you a mutant?"

My cute fiancée smacked her head. "Right, sorry. I'm a martial artist, and my style uses a giant spatula- it's Okonomiyaki based. But my spatula got lost a few weeks ago, so you won't be able to see me practice until I get a new one." She cleared her throat. "As for my mutant power- watch."

Before our eyes, all her skin, hair and eyes turned chrome silver. She looked like an unusually life-like statue. "I can turn into liquid metal. If I get hurt, it's kinda like hurting the evil Terminator from Terminator 2- I just form back together. Like him, I can make blades and stuff." She matched action to words, turning her right arm into a long blade. "Unlike him, I can't change color. It's like I'm made outa Mercury, only not poisonous. If I get seriously hurt, I turn into metal and then I'm fine."

She sat down again. Next Bishop got up. "Hey. I'm Lucas Bishop- call me Bishop. I've got some military training- my dad, before he died, was a soldier. He taught me a lot of what they taught him. My mutant power is to absorb energy that's used against me. That includes mutant powers that involve shooting some kind of energy, lasers, and even fire. I can use it to make myself stronger, or shoot it out as a blast."

Next was the blond girl who had spoken up earlier. Her hair came down to her waist, and she had this… bearing. I'd seen it before. She was a fighter- not necessarily a martial artist, but definitely used to fighting. "I'm Carol Denvers. I'm from Massachusetts, and I spent the last six months using my powers to fight crime as Ms Marvel." That name didn't mean a thing to me, but the Ivans and one of the new girls was impressed. "I'm super strong, invulnerable enough to have bullets bounce off me, and I can fly."

Next to stand were the twins. "Hey, I'm Ivan Goratschin. I'm the older of us- we're 17. We're from Russia."

The other head took his turn to speak. "I'm Ivanovitch Goratschin. I'm the exact same age, since we _share a __fricken__ body_!" One arm punched him in the head. "Ow! Anyway, as you can tell, we're green, and we're conjoined twins. Our power is that we can blow stuff up by looking at it."

No-one else wanted to volunteer, so I pointed to the only remaining guy. He had a blond mullet, which wouldn't have looked out of place in the 70's. There was a star-shaped tattoo around his left eye. His skin looked a little leathery, and he had this aura of cheerful trust. "Hi everyone. I'm called Longshot. I'm not sure what my name is- I don't have any memories past a month or two ago. My power is good luck."

"Good luck?!?" Ucchan was more than a little skeptical.

"Yup. As long as my heart is pure, my luck is good." There was a sudden ray of sunshine illuminating him, and a shower of rose petals fell from nowhere. We all sweatdropped. "Ms Frost says that I have hollow bones too- all I know about that is that I'm pretty acrobatic. Oh, and I only have three fingers per hand." He held them up to show us, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed before.

"Nice and flexible, huh?" Leered another girl, with short blond hair. It went right over his head, but most of the rest of us blushed. Carol and the other girl just joined in leering.

I rolled my eyes. "Ok, you're next," I said, pointing at her. She stuck her tongue out at me.

"I'm Alison, Alison Blaire. I wanna be a popstar!" We all sweatdropped. "Ms Frost's getting me vocal and instrument training. My stage name is Dazzler! My mutant power lets me take sound and turn it into light. Like, laser beams and stuff." She bowed.

The last person left was a girl with lavender hair. She had a bearing like Kodachi- not the insanity, but the grace and elegance. I was fairly sure that she came from money. "I'm Sharon Smith. I can turn into a cat- either house cat sized, or tiger sized. I also have enhanced senses, and a healing factor."

That name was disturbingly familiar, and I filed it away for further thought. "I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial arts. I'm a lesbian." There was a gasp from Alison and Sharon. Carol raised her eyebrow, and it went straight over Longshot's head. The twins and Bishop already knew, of course. It felt weird saying that- after all, I'm a guy. "I'm happily engaged to Ukyo." She sighed happily. "I'm also married to Shampoo." This made the entire lot of them gasp.

"You're cheating on Ukyo?"

"You're cheating on Shampoo?"

I waved my hands around in panic. "Gah! It ain't like that!"

Ucchan snickered. "It isn't cheating if the three of us share a bed!"

They all gasped again. I got irritated. "Get over it! Yes, I'm sleeping with the two best girls in the world. I'm not gonna try drag you into our bed."

"Damn," Ucchan muttered. I threw a muffin at her- there was a distinct clang as it hit her head. Carol and Bishop gave her a strange look at that, with good reason- not many muffins 'clang' when they bounce off metal.

"Moving on- I'm a martial artist. I've spent my whole life training, and I'm one of the best in the world."

Ucchan cracked an evil grin. "And what is your mutant power, honey?"

I glared at her. "No-one wants to know that."

"I do!" Came from the rest of the room. I glared at her again.

"I..." I took a deep breath. "I kiss people."

You could hear the crickets chirping outside. "Huh?"

"I kiss people- and then there's this pink smoke, and they do whatever I want. It seems to last until they've slept it off." I was blushing furiously, remembering when I'd learnt how to do that- let's just say that with two beautiful girls and a small, almost airtight space, I'd learnt just how effective it could be- even by accident. "I think it's got something to do with hormones or pheromones or something."

"Her mutant name is Temptress," Ucchan added unhelpfully.

I glared at her some more. "Well yours is Mercury- shall I tell them why?" She blushed and shook her head. I knew she didn't want people to know that she'd named herself after a children's anime character.

"Now, as you probably know, I'm gonna be training you. Partly in your powers, but mostly in martial arts." I patted my oversized chest. "See these? I've trained all my life and they're still here. Amateurs train until they disappear, and they're left flat as a board, and not much stronger. I'm gonna show you how to build strength, and not come out of it lookin' all gross and muscle bound. Heck, you girls might even gain a cup size or two. I should warn you though, I'm gonna make your bodies into power plants- they'll take in all the food you give them, and turn it into useful energy, not store it in fat." The girls looked at me like I'd promised them the Holy Grail, which confused me- that meant they'd have to eat a lot, and I thought girls didn't like eating- the number of times I'd seen Nabiki or one of the girls at school turn down good food was insane. Maybe it was a western thing. "Starting tomorrow, I'm gonna want to see what each of you can do."

I beckoned to Sharon. "Sharon, can you come with me? The rest of you, do whatever. We're gonna be a while. Wander around the mansion, or scrounge some food off Jeeves."

Sharon and I walked out of the room. She looked nervous. I opened my mouth, but she spoke up first. "Um... Miss Ranma?"

I winced. "It's just Ranma. I'm not that much older than you are."

"Ranma. Do... I'm sorry."

I blinked. That wasn't what I was expecting. "Sorry? For what?"

She looked down. "We met before. In the Dark Hand facility. I tried to kill you."

I scratched my head, before snapping my fingers. "Hey, I remember that!" Then I shivered. "We're gonna have a little problem. I... don't like cats."

Sharon smiled slightly. "I noticed. I'm really sorry about what happened. I was under their control. My parents gave me to them a couple of years ago, when they noticed I wasn't exactly normal any more, and the military put some mind controlling collar on me."

My fists clenched. How could parents do that to their child?!? I vowed to make them pay. "Meh. The first time we met, you tried to kill me. Story of my life." I hesitated. "But I may not be able to train you- I _really_ don't like cats."

"..ok," The lavender haired girl said in a small voice.

"But Ucchan or Shampoo could train you instead!" I tried to cheer her up. That didn't work, but something else happened. I finally made the connection of where I'd heard her name before. ""Sharon..."

"Yes?"

"You wouldn't happen to know any girls named Rahne Sinclair would you?" I asked carefully. The response wasn't what I expected. She burst into tears and she glomped me. I was painfully aware of how short my body... my girl body was. "Ummm... sorry?"

"R..R..Rahne?!? Sinclair?!?" She asked desperately.

"Yup, I think so." I awkwardly wrapped my arms around her. "She was a hitchhiker we picked up on the way here. She didn't talk much about herself, but she said she was looking for someone- her old best friend, Sharon Smith. She said she went to boarding school, and when she tried to phone you your parents hung up on her." My soothing voice seemed to calm her down. "Then six months ago, she left the school and went looking for you. She couldn't find her, and she's been looking ever since."

She cried a little more, and hugged me even harder. "Thank you. Thank you."

I blushed. I wasn't used to people being this emotional- at least not without violence involved. "Come on. I wanna talk to Emma."

We found Emma with Sage and Shampoo, sitting in the lounge talking quietly. I pointed to Sharon. "Emma. How in _hell_ did you miss this?"

She looked blank. "What are you talking about?"

I rolled my eyes. "Cat? Me? N-n-neko-ken? Ring any bells?"

She looked completely confused, before her face settled on irritated. "Evidently, Nabiki omitted some things from her reports."

Sage looked equally confused, while Shampoo seemed to have an idea. "Is she a cat-mutant?"

"Yes, I am. You met me at that Black Hand base- I was being forced to kill you three." She sounded depressed. I swatted the back of her head. "OW! Hey!"

"No angsting!" I scolded. "But seriously Emma, we're gonna have to do something. I really, _really_ don't like cats."

"I'll think on that problem," Emma said. "But there isn't much that I can do right now."

* * *

A few hours later found the three of us lying on the roof, catching the last of the afternoon sun. I was cuddled in-between my fiancée and my wife.

"And they all lived happily ever after," Ucchan said out of nowhere.

"Huh?"

She smiled warmly. "It's like a fairy tale. The three of us, overcoming adversity and rivals for our hearts, and finding true love together. Everything's coming together." She put her arm around me, and hugged me closer. "Now, I'm getting the shop I always wanted, sharing it with the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, and a gorgeous woman who won't sue me for sexual harassment. You've got your students. We're rich, and we're working to save the world. This is our happily ever after."

Shampoo smiled at that, but I shook my head. "Sure, we're happy. But come on- we're mutants. The entire world wants us dead on principle. There's a lunatic billionaire out there who's hunting us down, and his cyborg-psycho sister who was built to kill us. We've got a house filled with super powered teenagers, and my curse is still locked. Akane is... well, there's someone back in Nerima who has a lot to answer for. "

I looked off into the distance. "There was this thing I remember from English class, a quote by some English guy. 'This isn't the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. It is, however, the end of the beginning.'"

* * *

Yay! Another chapter!

This is the end of Arc 1: New Beginnings of Hellfire Days and Wild Knights. Watch out for Arc 2: New Nerima!

This has actually been ready for a month and a half, but I had another 4k words, and couldn't see an end in sight. So that'll go towards making sure the next chapter hurries up- I'm gonna aim to have it up for Christmas.

The end quote was from Winston Churchill. It's one of my favourites.

Temptress was a very, very minor character from Uncanny X-men. She appeared in about three issues, and was possessed by the aliens known as the Brood. She took control of most of the X-men, and was killed by Wolverine (I think). Unlike Ranma, she just had to be in a person's presence for a while, no kiss needed.

(Thus I have fulfilled my promise to take an existing mutant instead of creating a power.)

(While I cannot remember the exact issue, Temptress was encountered while the X-men had faked their deaths and were living in Australia. The team of the time: Storm. Rogue. Longshot. Wolverine. Psylocke. Havoc. Colossus. Madeline Prior. )


	14. Interlude: Letters Home

I don't own X-men or Ranma ½. If I did, they would probably suck, and there would be a lot of giant robots involved.

* * *

Nodoka Saotome sipped a cup of tea, and sighed.

It had been over a month since she had last seen her son. Having missed out on most of his life, she had been overjoyed when she had met him again. Sure, there was the curse to get in the way, but she could tell her son was a man amongst men despite it. In the few months since she had found out that 'Ranko' was actually Ranma, she had been ecstatic. He son was back- not quite as well educated as she would have liked, and a little nervous around girls, but those were small things next to the fact that her family was together again.

And now her son was gone once more. Genma had been unusually closemouthed on the subject, but she knew something bad had happened. He had outright forbidden her to talk to any of the regular Nerima crew, including the Tendos, and had moved the two of them to Osaka.

She had listened- for all his character faults (and by god he had a lot of those), there were two things about Genma that you could depend on through anything, even when he was hungry. The two things which had first attracted her to him in the first place, all those years ago. The first was that Genma was a survivor. He could smell danger, and somehow always survived it- whatever the cost to his pride. The second was that Genma cared for his family. He looked out for them no matter what. If he was serious about breaking contact with his best friend, it was almost certainly to make sure that she was safe.

She sighed again. That didn't make her loneliness any more bearable.

There was a knocking from the door, and she got up to answer it, smoothing out her creaseless kimono and looking as elegant as ever.

At the door was a foreigner, a western man in a dark suit. Inwardly she groaned, but outwardly she smiled politely. "Hello. My I help you?"

The foreigner blinked. "Nodoka Saotome... yes. I have something for you." He reached into his jacket, and Nodoka eased the ever-present katana on her back into her hand. Bill collectors found her no matter where she was, or where her husband had run up a tab. Some of them didn't take no for an answer.

"If this is about my husband, I'm afraid I don't know where he is."

The foreigner shook his head. "This isn't about you husband, ma'am. This is about your son." He pulled out a letter instead of a weapon, and Nodoka relaxed slightly. "I have a letter for you from him, and one from his wife."

She dropped her bundled katana in shock. "Ranma?!?"

He nodded. "I'm not at liberty to give any details, but if you want to send a letter in return, I'll be back in a week."

He passed her the letters, and her eyes teared over. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She sniffed. "Who do I owe my thanks to?"

The westerner smiled warmly. "My employer would prefer to remain anonymous, but call me Matt."

_Hey Mom, Pop._

_It's me, Ranma. Sorr__y I haven't been able to write __till now, but it wasn't safe. __Kuno__coulda__ used it to find me. _

_I guess you __wanna__ know what I've been up to. Well, __me__, Shampoo an__d__ Ucchan left Japan. __I can't say where to, but we're happy here. The girls are starting up a shop, and I'm training a bunch of kids in Anything-Goes. It's too soon to say if they're __gonna__ be any good, but two or three have potential. _

_Umm...__ I don't know if __you know, but my curse is locked again. It looks like __it's__gonna__ be a while before it's fixed. Apparently, if you turn into a mutant, your curse locks. Sucks, huh?__ If I'd been a guy at the time, I'd be cured. We're working on curing it, but no-one's sure how to do it. My boss has a couple of ideas, but wants a second opinion. _

_Oh yeah, I'm a mutant. I can kiss anyone, and they'll do whatever I want. It's about the last power I __woulda__ wanted, but hey- it's pretty manly, right Mom? _

_Um... __me__ an' Shampoo are now properly married. Consumed an' everything. The three of us share a bed._

_When we sort everything out with __Kuno__, you two should __come__ stay with us for a while. It'd be nice to get to know you a little more, Mom. _

_Love, _

_Ranma._

Nodoka cried happily. Her son was alive! His curse was locked, but he was ok! And manly! So very manly! She opened the next letter.

_Dear Mr and Mrs Saotome_

_Nihaou__ This is your new daughter-in-law, Shampoo._

_I am very sorry that I could not write sooner, but with __Kuno__ after us, we couldn't do so without sending him after us__- or after you__. However, our new employer and friend __has__ assured us that this letter is secure. _

_Your son and I are now truly involved with each other (and __Arien's__ old friend, Ukyo __Kounji__), and I have never been happier. I have loved your son for years, and despite the __recent __tragedy that surrounds the circumstances of our relationship, I wouldn't trade it for anything. _

_As I'm sure __Ranma has mentioned in his letter, his curse is locked. The actual explanation is complicated, but as long as Ranma is a mutant, he will have a girl's body. However, he is still a man inside. __Although he does wear girl's clothing, he __doesn't__ enjoy it, and only does so __so__ that Ukyo and I can leer at him._

_He's a little fragile. With ...what happened... and his curse locking, he's very insecure- even more so than normal. We're taking care of him- lots of sex and ego inflating, mostly, and he has been getting better. _

_Our new employer would prefer to remain __anonymous, but __she is __rather wealthy. She has offered Ranma the position of trainer and leader of the more ...hands on... aspect of her business. _

_When we have solved the __Kuno__ problem one way or another, we would love it if you would come to stay with us- I know Ranma misses you both far more than he will admit, and I would like to get to know my mother-in-law. _

_Shampoo_

Nodoka smiled happily again. Her son was in good hands. Even if they were the hands that had destroyed her house. She would have words with them about that.

That evening, Genma came home. She didn't ask where he had been, but he had more money than when he had left, and he had a proud smirk on his face.

"Genma, look! Our son has written!"

Genma's face was a combination of joy and irritation. "Stupid boy! He should know better than to send a letter! I taught him about cops!"

His wife shook her head. "It was hand delivered. Read, read!"

"Alright woman!" She bopped him on the head with the handle of her katana, and he quickly read the letter. A smile found its way onto his face- not a greedy smile, but an actual, honest, loving smile.

"Genma. What is this that they're talking about?" Nodoka asked. "What happened that you won't tell me about? What does this Kuno person have to do with it?"

The bald man's face clouded over. "You don't want to know."

"Yes I do!"

He shook his head sadly. "No, you don't. It will only hurt you. Trust me on this."

Oh Genma. He always cared so much about her. "Our son knows. I want to be there for him. Please, husband, tell me."

He looked into her pleading eyes, and gave in. "Alright. It happened the day of the wedding. Ranma had tried to turn back into a man, and for some reason, it didn't work. He went to talk to Shampoo's grandmother, Cologne. But when he found out that he was a mutant, someone else was listening..."

* * *

A tiny chapter, I know. I meant to have it up on Christmas, but I slipped. Next chapter just waits for C&C.

By the way- I could use a pre-reader or two. Mostly to help with spelling, but any help would be much appreciated. Anyone interested, PM me.

DoWnEr: Thank you. I actually agree- most Ranma-stuck-as-a-girl fics suck ass. Most of them have Ranma turn into a completely different person, a girl who loves looking pretty and often becomes attracted to guys. I have been trying everything I can to avoid falling into that trap.

TJG: Excellent ideas. Thanks a bunch for them- I have something in mind for later, but I needed a good justification for it to happen. I won't go into too much detail, but you just gave me it.

TJG & Bobboky: Good ideas. I plan to do them as soon as I can get away with it.


	15. Chapter 12: Beating the Students

I don't own anything X-men-ish, or Ranma. I own my laptop, and my imagination.

Thanks to **J. St.C. Patrick **for aggreeing to be my official pre-reader. The man is a saint.

* * *

Emma sat cross-legged on the floor across from Ranma who was doing likewise. Shampoo kneeled behind Ranma, her hands on the redhead's head. Ranma was asleep. "There isn't a lot you can do to help here, but it will give you some perspective into how the mind truly functions."

After Shampoo had explained what she knew of the Neko-ken to Emma (Ranma had been unusually silent on the subject) they had decided the only option was to treat it like a cancer- cut it out. Like major surgery, there were some small risks, but once Emma had an idea of what it was she had deemed it too important to give up on. Having a teacher who went to pieces the moment one student used her power was too big a weakness to ignore.

"Now, close your eyes, and send your astral self in after me," Emma instructed. She left her body behind, becoming an insubstantial ghost. Shampoo did the same, though the difference in power was obvious. Emma's astral form was glowing with power, while the Amazon's form was patchy and dim.

'Observe,' Emma stated. She reached out, and pushed one incorporeal arm into Ranma's head. She kept pushing, until she was in up to the shoulder. 'Notice how the rest of my 'arm' hasn't come out the other side? It's actually inside her mind, as is the rest of me.' With that, she disappeared. Shampoo followed her example.

They reappeared inside what appeared to be a dojo, to Shampoo's confusion. 'This is the Tendo dojo? How did we get here?'

Emma smirked. 'This is her mind. The typical mind is organized like a house, with different rooms associated with different parts of the personality. The first place you enter is usually the aspect of a mind that the person most personifies- or believes themselves to personify.'

'Ahh. This dojo must be martial arts,' Shampoo noted. 'So where do we find the Neko-ken?'

'I'm not sure,' Emma admitted. 'Let's look around. It has to be here some place.'

The duo left the dojo, and entered the house. Shampoo noticed that its layout was almost identical to the genuine article. 'Let's start at the kitchen,' she suggested.

The kitchen was a major surprise. At least, the kitchen was normal- well, one of them was. There were two, side by side. The first was dark, covered with spiders. Cruel looking implements of torture adorned the walls, and blood stained the floor. The second was a cheerful, happy place. Food was cooking on the stove top, and there was a happy humming from around the corner. Curiously, Shampoo investigated the noise, and was confronted with Ranma-chan. Her chest was noticeably smaller, and she wore a traditional kimono. 'Emma? What's happening?'

'Don't worry, that isn't your wife,' Emma reassured her. 'It's a representation of a part of her- probably Ranma's feminine side. The dark room though, that I'm not entirely sure of. I can feel a lot of malice radiating from it.'

Shampoo's face darkened. 'I know why that would be- it's not the Neko-ken. Let's keep searching.' Emma took note of the look on her face and didn't inquire further.

The living room was empty, apart from a shogi board and a bottle of sake, so they moved up to the second floor. Ranma and Genma's room was inhabited by Ranma-kun doing press-ups. 'This would be where the masculine part of Ranma dwells, I assume.'

Shampoo noted something worrying. 'Emma... why is he so pale?' Pale was an understatement. Ranma-kun was white, utterly devoid of colour. It looked eerily like he might look as a manga character.

'Her male self image is beginning to fade,' Emma explained. 'It won't die- what will happen is it will become less of a factor as the feminine side grows stronger.' The rich woman noticed how scared Shampoo looked. 'Don't worry; it won't make a lot of difference. Most of this paleness is from two years of turning into a girl- it shows how Ranma is afraid of losing it. Also, we came in to the 'martial arts' part of her mind, and that's what she most strongly believes herself to be. This is much less important to her.'

Shampoo nodded, partially mollified. They headed out of the room, and walked down the hall. The next door had a little pig on it, with kanji spelling 'Akane'. Shampoo chewed her bottom lip. 'I don't want to see what's there.' She turned around. 'Emma, you check.'

Understandingly, the White Queen opened the door and looked in, before pulling her head out and blushing. 'You don't need to be insecure, trust me,' she said dryly. Tentatively, Shampoo took a peek. Then she stayed there, drooling. Emma pulled her out. 'We're not here to find juicy gossip about her, Shampoo. Ranma trusted us to do this, and I refuse to betray that trust. Let's find the Neko-ken.'

Shampoo nodded regretfully, and took one last look at the bed where Ranma-kun, Ranma-chan, Shampoo, Ukyo and Akane were making the beast with two...five backs, and then followed Emma down the hall.

Nabiki's room contained a Ranma-chan wearing glasses, pouring over books. Soun Tendo's room held a Ranma-chan crying in a corner. 'Those must be Ranma's intelligence and despair,' Emma noted.

The last room... 'I think we've found it,' said Shampoo with nervousness. The door was bloodstained, covered in claw marks, and chained shut. From behind they heard an earthshaking feline roar, followed by screams.

Emma swallowed nervously. 'We won't cure this without going in there.' Her hand shaking almost imperceptibly, she reached out and opened the door.

The room was dark, its features indistinct. The only part of note was the large hole in the floor. Inside the hole... Emma retched, and the Amazon paled. A little chibi Ranma-kun was in one corner, curled into the foetal position and covered in scratches. In front of him was a cat. Well, if cats were five metres long and had teeth that could bite through cars. Every aspect was exaggerated for fear, and it was working on all of them. It clawed chibi-Ranma again and again, his wounds healing after every swipe only to be reopened by the next one. Each time it clawed him, he screamed.

'Wh... what is that on his head?' Emma asked, trying to distract herself from the gruesome display.

'His head?' Shampoo blinked. 'That's... me!'

Emma took a closer look. Sitting on chibi-Ranma's head was a small white cat with lavender highlights. With each attack by the bigger cat, it would try and fend it off. Each time that failed, it would lick chibi-Ranma's wounds comfortingly. 'Emma, that's my old curse! It's trying to protect him!'

Emma frowned, trying to connect the dots. 'Interesting... It must be because of how much Ranma cares for you, and how much she feels safe with you. In her mind, she equates you with safety and kindness. The reason it's your old curse here, instead of you as you are now, is because of how terrifying she finds cats. She doesn't want anyone else to be hurt by them, and so her subconscious thinks of your cursed form as the one thing that can defend her from them.'

Shampoo smiled sadly. 'He always used my curse to activate the Neko-ken when he needed to win at all costs. I was the only cat he'd let do it- I heard once that he stood in a room filled with cats and covered in fish sausage, and didn't go Neko until a tiger came in- and even then he waited until it licked him. I always hoped he trusted me, and that was the one piece of evidence I clung to. Even when it looked hopeless, like he hated me, I clung to that memory. It... it's nice to be right.'

Emma gave her a hug. 'Look behind Ranma.'

Shampoo peered at the wall behind the small boy. 'Is that a door? Why isn't he escaping through it?'

'Because I suspect through that door is the human you, along with Ukyo and anyone else Ranma cares for. She is trying to use herself to keep you safe.'

The Chinese girl's eyes flattened. 'I can't let that happen.' She tensed, and was on the verge of jumping in to the pit when Emma grabbed her.

'That is one of the worst things you could do. This is symbolic- nothing here is literally true. What you see is your perception of Ranma's inner psyche. There is no-one behind that door. Ranma isn't actually being mauled constantly. If you take Ranma and stuff her-him through that door, she will probably go into a coma next time she sees a cat.'

'Well, we came here to get rid of the neko-ken, right? Let's kill that cat!'

* * *

Downstairs, Ukyo sat at a table with a trio of blonds. "Pickup two."

Carol took a look at her cards. "Pickup four. Why did you join up with Emma, Ukyo?"

The chef chuckled at Longshot picking up cards. "Well, Ranma, Shampoo and I had to leave Japan. When we got here, she offered us jobs. What about you three?"

Alison threw down a card. "She offered me training in the popstar biz. Didn't hurt that she stopped me from making a big mistake."

Ukyo looked at her cards, and picked up another. Carol threw down two fives. "Take that! She said she'd give me some help with a problem I was having as Miss Marvel."

"What problem? Secret identity?" Longshot laid down another five.

"Cyborgs. Damn things keep popping up back home. I keep taking them out, but they come back stronger and stronger each time."

Alison laid down another five, and Ukyo groaned. "Twenty cards! That's mean." She started picking up cards. "What about you, Longshot?"

He smiled innocently. "Emma's helping me find out about my past. She tried looking inside my head, but that didn't work. Now she's got private investigators working on it."

Carol put down an ace. "Change to clubs. Last card."

Longshot put down a ten. Alison glared at him, and Ukyo smirked. "Hah! Pickup four!"

The ex-vigilante smirked. "One-eyed jack cancels that! I win!"

While Ukyo and Alison pouted, Longshot looked around. "I wonder what everyone else is doing?"

* * *

Emma and Shampoo stood on the outside of the door, panting. Their clothes were torn, and they were covered in scratches. Behind the door one could hear the roars of a pissed off cat.

'We need a new plan.'

'Agreed.'

* * *

Ivan and Ivanovitch strained with all their might. Beads of sweat dripped off their identical green heads. Their muscles bulged out on their arms. They strained and strained, until... SLAM! Their right hand hit the table. They sighed in unison.

"Damn it! How does he do that?"

"Yeah! We're twice the man he is, not to mention taller."

Across the table, Bishop smirked. "That's what happens when you don't work out." He flexed his bulky arm, causing Tessa to drool a little. She hastily wiped her mouth before anyone noticed.

* * *

Shampoo and Emma lay on the floor outside the chained door, bleeding from dozens of scratches. Emma glared at the Chinese girl, and then at the bag she was holding.

'Never again.'

Shampoo was too exhausted to argue. Who would have thought that the Neko-ken went insane around fish sausage?

* * *

Jeeves stirred an oversized pot. It bubbled enticingly, and he sniffed it to make sure it was up to his normal standard. It was, and he double checked the other pots. With all the people in the house, he now had to cook for twelve normal people- and Ranma.

Ranma alone almost doubled the amount he'd have to cook.

So as a result he had had to start dinner at one in the afternoon. As he added a liberal dash of paprika, he frowned slightly. What was taking Miss Frost so long?

* * *

Emma and Shampoo lay collapsed on the floor, in the mansion. Ranma was still sleeping in front of them. They were drenched in sweat. "I give up," Emma said resolutely.

"...good."

She smirked tiredly. "We'll just cheat."

* * *

'Ukyo,' Emma's voice sounded in the chef's head. 'Come to your room. Shampoo and I need you to help make a decision.'

Ukyo quickly excused herself from another game of Last Card (which she was losing, badly) and jogged up the stairs. The room that she shared with Ranma and Shampoo had a pair of tired telepaths and an unconscious redhead.

Emma wasted no time in getting to business. "Shampoo and I went into Ranma's psyche to try and destroy the Neko-ken, but it was too engrained into her mind. I doubt that it could ever be totally destroyed."

Ukyo looked puzzled. "Just what IS the Neko-ken anyway? I know it makes Ranchan afraid of cats, and makes him act like one, but just what is it?"

"I wish I knew. It seems to have become one of the stronger parts of her mind, but as to the details... I wish I knew more, like where it came from."

The chef was unusually serious. "I know a little about it, but he was always quiet about it. It happened when he was somewhere between six and ten."

Shampoo frowned. "Grandmother never told me just what it was. What little she let slip was bad. She mentioned that if it isn't done exactly right, the pupil either dies or goes mad. Sometimes that happens even if everything goes perfectly."

Ukyo cast her mind back to when she'd met her fiancé again at Furinkan High School. "I think it did something to his memories. She barely remembered me when I finally tracked him down." Other incidents came to mind. "She didn't even remember that I was a girl, and I'm sure I told him. He forgot his own mother. There was that secret sauce... He forgot most of his life before the Neko-ken."

"Get your pronouns straight. It's confusing for everyone if you keep alternating between 'he' and 'she'," Emma noted absently. "But that information fits in neatly with what I observed."

From the floor came a weak moan. Ranma sat up and rubbed her head. "Ohhhh. My head hasn't hurt that bad since the time I tried Sake."

There was a distinct 'thud' as Ranma hit the ground again, with Shampoo on top of her. "Arien! You're okay!"

"O'course I'm okay! I'm the best!" There was a short pause. "Why wouldn't I be okay? What happened?"

A pair of tender amethyst eyes gazed at the pigtailed girl. "We tried to get rid of the Neko-ken, but..." Shampoo's hug changed from bone crushing to gentle and caring. "It was the most evil thing I've ever seen."

Ukyo joined in the hug, which hid Ranma from view. Emma cleared her throat. "We _do_ have things to do, dears."

The trio separated. "So, what's the verdict, doc?" Ranma asked with an obviously false show of cheer.

Emma didn't rise to the bait. "I sincerely doubt that the Neko-ken can be removed without damaging you. It's too entrenched. Even if it is possible, it will take years."

Ranma looked sad, while Ukyo noticed something. "You said that there was a decision to be made. What's happening?"

The White Queen nodded approvingly. "While an outright cure is beyond out powers, there is an alternative. It will allow you to see Sharon use her power without any terror. It... well, suffice it to say that there is no way that this method can be applied to any other cat."

Ranma perked up. "Well, whataya waiting for? Let's do it!"

Emma looked hesitant. "There is a slight problem with doing so. I will have to go deep within your mind, and change things."

Blink. "What kinds of things?"

"Nothing important- I'm not going to change your memories or personality. As for what I'm going to change... I can't tell you."

"Why not?" Ranma looked indignant. It only made her look cuter, and Ukyo had to restrain herself from having a quick grope. Now was not the time. But later...

"Because it wouldn't work. It depends heavily on you not knowing," Emma said regretfully.

Ranma looked frustrated. "But we aren't the same- heck, we don't even know each other that well."

Blond hair shimmered seductively as Emma nodded. "That is why I asked Ukyo to come here. In the medical profession, if a person isn't able to make a decision for themselves (or isn't capable of communicating their decisions) they get a family member or partner to make it for them. I can't tell you- but I can tell them."

The redhead sighed. "Fine."

* * *

Carol shuffled a pack of cards, trying to ignore her lavender haired companion. Finally, the fidgeting got too much for her. "Would you stop that!?!"

Sharon had the grace to blush. "Sorry. I just can't wait for Ms Emma and Ranma to finish whatever they're doing."

"What's up with you anyway? Ever since you and Ranma went off together, you've been jumpier than a criminal on his first heist."

Sharon looked out the window. "A few years ago, my best friend moved away. Before she could give me her new phone number, I started mutating. My parents had no idea what was happening, so they packed me off for the government to study." He voice took on a growling tone, and Carol was surprised to see claws emerge from the lavender-haired girl's fingers. "I only got free a couple of weeks ago, thanks to Ranma. Not only that, but she found my friend. She lives in this town! She's going to re-introduce us."

Carol slowly floated into the air. "Are you sure she'll want to know you? You are a mutant. The world doesn't like us very much." She floated upside-down. "Since that big fight between the X-men and the giant robot, the world went nuts trying to hunt us all down. They were on the verge of declaring us to not be real people. If it hadn't been for the X-men stopping some guy from tearing down a dam on national television, during the debate on what response to take to mutants, we would probably be hunted down by the government."

"I know," Sharon said quietly. "But Rahne's my friend. She'd never betray me, no matter what."

* * *

"What I want to do," Emma started, "Is tamper with her perceptions. Her fear of cats permeates her brain, yet there is one cat that she isn't so afraid of- Shampoo's curse. Her mind envisioned the curse as protecting her from cats."

"Are you planning on making him think that Sharon's the cat that protects him?" asked Shampoo.

"No, that wouldn't work. Instead, I will play on her mind's natural desire to believe what it wants to believe. It doesn't want to believe that a purple cat is evil- so it doesn't want to believe that a purple cat is a cat." The White Queen's voice had taken on a lecturing tone. "By strengthening that natural desire, Ranma will not perceive Sharon- or more specifically, Catseye- to be a cat. The mind will then make the necessary adjustments on its own."

Ukyo smiled at that, but Shampoo frowned. "And when someone points out that Catseye is a cat, the whole work comes undone."

Emma smirked. "The mind is a lot like a computer. All you will need to do is reset it, and it will return to how it was. If someone explains it to Ranma, knock her out. When she wakes up, she'll have forgotten that Sharon turns into a cat, instead of something less terrifying."

The two Asian mutants looked at each other, and came to a conclusion. "Okay. Do it."

* * *

In the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, a commotion was taking place. Even for a place filled with adolescent mutants with raging hormones and not quite controlled powers, it was unusually noisy. Kitty ran down the corridor and snagged the first person she saw- Bobby. "What's happening?"

Bobby waved his arms around. "One of Magneto's goons is here- the metal one!"

"Colossus?" Kitty said in surprise. "I haven't seen him since that party we had after we beat Apocalypse. What does he want?"

"Dunno. But the Professor wanted Scot, Logan, Beast, Jean and Storm in his office. Tin-man is just sitting in the living room, waiting."

"Well, what are you waiting for?!? Let's go!" Kitty ran off, unimpeded by such mundane things as walls.

She arrived in the hall, where an impassive Colossus stood silently, leaning against a wall. Around him were some of the New Mutants, looking at him like a tiger in a zoo. That wouldn't do.

"Hey, Pitor! What are you doing here?"

The man gave a start. "Kitty? What are you doing here?"

She grinned. "I live here! But, like, what are you doing here?"

He sighed contentedly. "A few nights ago, Magneto was summoned to a meeting. I don't know what happened there, but when he came back he released his hold over me. My sister is safe now. I came here to see if your home might open to a simple farmer who wants to make up for his crimes."

Kitty blinked, and then squealed. "You're gonna be an X-man!"

* * *

I opened my eyes, closing them again sharply as a headache stronger than Ryoga kicked in. "Damn. I haven't woken up to a headache like that since Ucchan lost her spatula."

"Hey!"

I opened my eyes again, to see Ucchan, Emma and Shampoo leaning over me. "What happened?"

Emma smiled kindly. "The operation was a success."

What the... operation? "Operation?" Oh god. Did I have a sex change? Into what? From what?

"The Neko-ken one, honey," Ucchan said, hugging me. "Emma says it worked."

Neko-ken? "She cured me of the Neko-ken?"

I was rewarded with two blank looks. "Don't you remember? We were talking about having to do something because of Sharon."

I racked my brains. And came up with nothing. "Does she have a pet cat?"

"Her mutation," Ucchan said. She was beginning to look afraid. "You had a problem with her mutation, remember?"

"Hey!" I spluttered indigently. "I ain't no jerk who hates mutants! I'm a mutant! You three are mutants! Why would I have a problem with mutants?!?"

Ucchan looked like she was about to go to pieces. "Not mutants, Sharon's mutation!"

I scratched the back of my head. "Why would I have a problem with a girl turning into a possum?

* * *

Downstairs, Sharon had an unexplainable urge to sink her claws into a redhead.

* * *

Ranma visibly shivered, but Shampoo had more pressing things on her mind. 'Emma- what happened? Did something go wrong?'

'No, don't worry,' she sent back, both to the Amazon and the okonomayiki chef. 'It's part of the mind protecting itself from harm. You'd be surprised at how much the mind likes to fool itself rather than admit that there is something wrong. Sometimes, when a person has a stroke, they might try and say 'The coffee is too hot,' and end up saying 'Banana fruit loop monkey,' without noticing the difference.'

'So everything worked?'

"I can't be sure until we test it,' Emma said. 'Let's suggest Ranma see what our Hellions can do.'

* * *

I wandered down the stairs, and found the new people lounging around. "Hey everybody! Time for me to see what you can do." I stuck one hand dramatically in the air. "To the basement!"

* * *

Sage stood with Emma and Shampoo in the observation room, overlooking the training room. The holographic projectors were working flawlessly, making the room look like an oversized dojo. Sage switched on the speaker. "This is our training room, the Holodeck. It is capable of emulating any environment possible, and is virtually indestructible. Don't worry about damaging it."

Alison raised her hand. "Why is it called the Holodeck?"

Sage rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible. "The inventor, Forge, likes Star Trek too much."

* * *

I stood in the Holodeck, my students around me. "In here, we should probably get used to calling each other by our codenames. We'll get uniforms eventually, as soon as me an' Emma can agree on what they are."

Ucchan nodded. "So I'm Mercury."

Carol grinned. "I'm Ms Marvel."

Alison piped up, "I'm Dazzler!"

Sharon looked depressed. "I guess I'm Catseye."

"I, uh, guess I'm Longshot?"

Bishop scowled. "I'm Bishop." He looked menacing enough that none of us wanted to argue with him.

The Ivan's looked at each other. "We'll just be Ivan until we can agree on a name."

I clapped my hands together. "And I'm Temptress," I scowled at Ukyo. "First things first. You guys are gonna take it in turns to attack me. That'll give me an idea of where you are, skill wise." I smirked. "Don't worry- I can guarantee that none of you can really hurt me, never mind kill me. Go all out." My grin turned predatory. "Who wants to be first?"

Ms Marvel stepped forward. "I'll give it a try."

It was like Christmas had come early- all these people, with cool new techniques (well, powers), and I was about to fight them all! "You guys get back- this might be a little messy." Ucchan positively ran away, and the others followed her example. I huffed. "Damn it Ucchan, it was just that one time! And no one got hurt!" I thought back for a second. "Well, no one important." I thought back some more. "Ok, _almost_ no one important." Ms Marvel looked a little nervous now. "Ya ready?"

She nodded. I stuck my hands into my pockets and smirked. "Ready when you are."

There was a brief pause, before she flew at me, fists outstretched. I leaned to one side, and she flew straight past me. I yawned.

She looked irritated, and came back for another flyby. This time she had her arms spread out to the sides. I grinned. This girl was learning. I could dodge her when she was a fast, small moving projectile, but with her arms out like that it was another story. This time, as she came close to me, I let myself lean backwards in a way that would have made a professional limbo dancer proud- after all, how many people could lean backwards to the point that their head was half a foot from the ground?

She flew right over me. "No way!" I smirked again. She was getting irritated!

She came at me again, and I frowned slightly. She was doing the same thing again, even though it hadn't worked before. She was even lower this time though. As she came past, I limboed underneath her again, and she overshot me.

I stood up again, before some sixth sense told me to move. I jumped to the side, seconds before the ground exploded and wood went flying everywhere. When the dust cleared, I grinned. Ms Marvel had seen that when I ducked under her charges, I took a moment to stand up again. She had used that to fly up, and then down and where I was standing. She _was_ clever. "Nice try, but not good enough!"

She was getting ticked. Ms Marvel, giving up on flight, came at me swinging. I weaved between her blows, chatting throughout. "Oh, nice try- that almost hit me- come on- wow, you're slow, ain't ya?" Her face was getting redder and redder. Finally, one of her blows connected to my stomach. I went flying back, landing on my feet. "Huh- I thought you were supposed to be strong. I've fought tougher pigs!"

She glared, but underneath the anger there was a calculating expression. She flew at me again, and quicker than before, grabbed me by the waist. I blinked, and she flew- upwards. Her grip tightening, she spoke into my ear. "You might be able to dodge me, even throw off my punch, but I'd like to see you get through this!" she smashed through the holographic dojo, and kept going up. When she reached the ceiling of the place, she turned around, and hurtled towards the floor. I blinked in shock.

She had moved me so that when she hit the ground, I'd be between her and the ground. With the speed she could fly, and the assistance of gravity, she would smash me against the ground. I almost began to regret telling her to go all out.

Almost.

As we were moments away from hitting the floor, I used an upper level Aikido escape twist to break her grip on me. Before she could react, I jumped away from her.

SMASH!

She hurtled into the floor. There was a moment where her head was buried in the ground, her body sticking straight into the air. Then she collapsed. I sighed, and pulled her out of the floor. She was unconscious.

"Well, she put up a good fight," I said cheerfully. "Who's next?"

They all went white.

* * *

Longshot was next. He came at me, punching wildly. I ducked under his first punch, when something strange happened. I knew I'd dodged perfectly, but he hit me!

Ok, it was about as strong as I was that time Happosai used the Ultimate Weakness Morxibustion on me, but still- he managed to hit me!

I jumped backwards, and he came at me again.

He came at me, swinging a clumsy punch at my head. I ducked, and slipped.

Yes. Me. Slipped.

I lay on the floor, stunned. How could **I** slip? Me? Ranma Saotome, the best martial artist of the generation?

I jumped up, and aimed a kick at his torso. It should have connected.

Should have.

Instead, he dodged.

Well, fell would be more accurate. The force behind the punch I dodged made him overbalance and fall, just in time to miss my kick. I glared at him. "How the hell can you be so lucky!?!"

He blushed. "It's my gift. Good things like that happen to me."

I groaned. "I thought you were kidding." A thought occurred to me. "Ya know, luck is important in a fight. I can't count the number of times I've had sheer luck turn the tide of a fight." My grin turned feral. "But no matter how useful luck is, it's skill that wins a battle." Forgoing all complex moves, I stuck my hand out too quickly for him to react to, and grabbed him by the collar. "See?" I threw him into the air.

I watched him fly upwards, and frowned. "Why is he so light?"

Over the intercom I heard Emma's voice. "His bones are hollow. And easily broken."

I blushed. "I should catch him, huh?"

"That _would_ be a good idea," Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She reminded eerily me of Nabiki. I leapt up, and caught him in my arms, landing easily. I was about to put him down, when I caught a look at his eyes.

The eyes are important. You can tell the measure of a man from the look in his eyes. You can see past hurts, present insecurities, fears, hopes, the works. In his eyes I saw a lot. Pain, lots and lots of pain, coupled with determination. An unwillingness to back down, and that combination of empathy and courage which said as plain as day, he would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat for another. Even if he had no idea who he was or where he'd come from, I had a clue. He was a good person, and he'd seen a lot of bad things.

It reminded me of myself.

I put him down, and to one side I could see Ucchan grinding her teeth for some reason. I thought about it for a sec, and realized why- I hadn't fought her yet. She was a true martial artist, and was looking forward to our match as much as I was.

"Hey, Ucchan," I said cheerfully. "Your turn."

* * *

Ukyo growled. How dare that fiancée of hers do that! Holding him so close, staring into his eyes...

Someone deserved a spanking.

Ukyo turned into her metal form, and formed a combat spatula out of her mass.

"Don't go easy on me, Ucchan," The red head warned, "Even with your powers." Ranma was visibly bouncing with joy, and Shampoo could guess why. When Ukyo had first arrived in Nerima, she had almost beaten Ranma. Time had only helped her improve, and now she was free to use the mutant power she had been keeping secret. A martial artist who specialized in weapons, with the ability to form and repair weapons, ones which were impossible to be disarmed of... Ranma looked like Christmas had come early.

Ukyo grew a layer of metal spikes, and charged.

* * *

Up in the observation booth, Shampoo was cheering madly for her husban...wife. The fight between Ranma/Temptress and Ukyo/Mercury had become borderline pornographic. Twenty minutes into the fight, Mercury had managed to rip off Temptress's shirt, leaving a racy bra which Temptress had put on that morning at Shampoo/Psylocke's insistence. Temptress had managed to fire a well-placed chi blast, destroying all of Mercury's clothes. The fight had become a standstill for a minute, until Temptress had realized the practical application of the soul of ice. She had started freezing Mercury's spatulas, causing them to shatter upon a well placed strike.

Mercury had been lost for a moment, before she hit upon a practical solution. By forming multiple, simple appendages, the loss of any individual one was negligible. The mass of limbs were able to make too many strikes to block, and were beginning to wrap around the red head.

Temptress groaned and strained as she tried to escape the mass of limbs that had managed to get a good hold of her. Mercury responded by shifting her hold to Temptress's arms and legs, and pulling them in different directions.

On the Holodeck, Bishop, Longshot and the Ivan's had passed out with bleeding noses. Ms Marvel, Catseye and Dazzler looked on in envy. Upstairs, Shampoo had pressed 'Record' at what was, to all appearances, a live action tentacle rape.

* * *

I won, of course. The next few fights were boring. Dazzler just shot laser beams from her hands, which were child's play to dodge. Bishop tried his hand at boxing, not even using any powers. The Ivan's made things blow up around me, which I stopped by grabbing a piece of debris and throwing it at the left head, knocking him unconscious. The right head, Ivanovitch, was too busy trying to stay standing up to dodge an uppercut.

Last up was Catseye. She looked really, _really_ nervous. I smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. I ain't gonna hurt you. Well, not much."

"Ummm... What about your cat problem?"

I looked around in pani... alertness. "Cat! Where?"

Catseye opened her mouth again, and then went cross eyed. After staying that way for a minute (and confusing the heck out of us all) she shook her head. "Never mind."

I stuck my hands in my torn up pants. "Well, let's do this."

Swallowing nervously, she tensed her muscles. I watched with mild interest as she gained half a foot in height, and grew purple fur all over her body. Her feet and hands changed shape slightly, and her mouth bulged out into a muzzle. From her tail bone a tail sprouted. All up, she looked like a purple possum-girl.

She leapt at me, and I twisted out of the way, letting her land on the ground. She spun around and leapt again, this time actually managing to hit me. 'Huh, she's pretty fluid,' I noticed. She tried to slash me with the 6 inch claws which extended out of her fingers, but I grabbed her hands and threw her.

She crashed into the wall of the dojo and didn't get up again.

* * *

A few minutes later (after Sage had brought a bucket of cold water, which I'd thrown on the unconscious people, and a shirt so that Ucchan and the guys would listen to me instead of stare at my chest) I stood facing all my new students (and Ucchan).

I cleared my throat. "Well, that was disappointing. You all suck."

They all exploded at that. "Hey, I nearly beat you!" "You're too fast!" "I was taking it easy on you!"

"SHUT UP!!!" I yelled. They shut up, and stared fearfully at me. I blushed a little at their stares. "Some of you did ok, I guess. Ucchan, you were awesome. Carol, you did the best out of everyone. Sharon, you did ok."

"Hey!" Ucchan protested. "Our fight lasted half an hour! How was she better than me?"

Carol smirked, and stuck her tongue out at my cute fiancée. I rolled my eyes. "You've been watching me fight for over a year, and you're a trained martial artist. Carol had no idea how I fought, no real training, and still came close to beating me. If she had held my right arm here," I pointed to the spot, "Instead of here, she might even have won."

Emma's voice boomed out over the intercom. "Ranma, your students have school tomorrow."

I blinked. School. I'd forgotten about that. I regretfully cancelled my plans for an everyone-vs-Ranma fight. "Well, I guess we'll continue training tomorrow. Everyone- dinner time. Bishop, could you stay behind?"

The rest of them hobbled out of the Holodeck, Ucchan lingering until I waved her away. Finally, it was just me and the man-sized mountain. Bishop looked confused and worried. "Is this about how I did in the fight?"

I nodded. "Yeah. You didn't even use any powers. How come?"

He looked down. "I absorb energy- like from Dazzler's blasts. You didn't fire any, so I couldn't use my power. If you had, I would have been stronger, faster."

I rubbed my chin for a moment. He absorbed energy, but that was all he could do. Without energy he was as useless as a flat battery. I thought back to my half remembered science lessons. "Energy... Can you absorb fire?"

"Yup."

"Electricity?"

"Yup."

"What about this?" I held my hand up in front of him. It took on a brief blue glow, before it condensed into a ball. "Moko Takabishia!"

It slammed into his chest, burning away the front of his shirt, and doing no other damage. He grinned, and he held his hand. It glowed blue for a moment. "Yup."

I blinked. Twice. "You could be as strong as Carol, with that power. Starting tomorrow, we're gonna work on that."

He left the room doing the manly equivalent of a happy skip, and I followed, whistling cheerfully. A good fight, and then dinner. This was a good life.

* * *

Authors Notes:

Hey, another chapter! I can't believe it took so long- apart from the last 1500 words, this thing has been sitting on my hard drive since Christmas.

About Pitor (Aka Colossus):

Colossus, in the original Uncanny X-men, was a Russian farmer. When the original X-men (Marvel Girl/Jean, Iceman, Angel, Beast, Havoc and Polaris) were taken prisoner by the mutant island Krakoa, Storm, Banshee, Sunfire, Wolverine, Colossus, Thunderbird and Nightcrawler were enlisted to rescue them. Colossus fought as an X-man for decades, briefly joining the acolytes. In X-men: Evolution, Colossus, along with Sabertooth, Gambit, Pyro and Mastermind were Magneto's acolytes. In one episode, it was revealed that Colossus wasn't working for Magneto because he was evil or insane, but because his family was being held hostage by the bucket head. Colossus fought alongside the X-men against Apocalypse, and was seen at the victory party afterwards. In the visions of the future Xavier has at the end of the series, Colossus was shown in the X-men. Notably, Gambit wasn't.

About Scott (Aka Cyclops)

Cyclops is an ass. He was through the movies, he was through the original TV series, and he was in the comics. Even Cyclops-lovers will admit that he acts like he has a stick shoved somewhere very uncomfortable. At best he has the occasional shining moment, but for the most part he's the one everyone loves to hate.

Or at least, he was.

X-men: Evolution Cyclops is his best portrayal to date. He's responsible without being a dick. He's every bit as human as his team, subject to worries and woes like the rest of them. More than that, he's a good leader- one who inspires as well as thinks. The creators of X-men: Evolution did a lot of things _very_ right, and that was one of the best.


End file.
